I've been looking at the Metavariants in the Runner's Companion along with the point values assigned to the special traits, and some just don't add up. Here are examples of the Ork and Troll Metavariants (excepting the Giant which had a matching Calculated Cost and RAW Cost) to express my point.

Hobgoblin
Ork Metatype: 20 BP
Fangs: 5 BP
Poor Self-Control (Vindictive): -10 BP
Calculated Cost: 15 BP
RAW Cost: 20 BP

Ogre
Ork Metatype: 20 BP
Ogre Stomach: 5 BP
Calculated Cost: 25 BP
RAW Cost: 20 BP

Oni
Ork Metatype: 20 BP
Striking Skin Pigmentation: -5 BP
Calculated Cost: 15 BP
RAW Cost: 25 BP

Satyr
Ork Metatype: 20 BP
Satyr Legs: 10 BP
Calcualted Cost: 30 BP
RAW Cost: 25 BP

Cyclops
Troll Metatype: 40 BP
Cyclopean Eye: -10 BP
Metagenic Improvement (Strength): 20 BP
No Natural Armor: -10 BP
No Thermographic Vision: -5 BP
Calculated Cost: 35 BP
RAW Cost: 45 BP

Fomori
Troll Metatype: 40 BP
Arcane Arrestor: 25 BP
Metagenic Improvement (Body): 20 BP
No Natural Armor: -10 BP
Calculated Cost: 75 BP
RAW Cost: 45 BP

Minotaur
Troll Metatype: 40 BP
Goring Horns: 5 BP
Metagentic Improvement (Body): 20 BP
No Natural Armor: -10 BP
Calculated Cost: 55 BP
RAW Cost: 45 BP

I really hope that this is a mistake, and that the values were not assigned without reference to the values given later in the book. I was hoping to use those Qualities as a menu for creating my own metavariants (or adjusting the ones given), and for that to feel right, I'd like the ones in the book to play nicely with the numbers.

Part of the BP value also represents the relative rarity of the character option. Except for that one island in the Aegean, you're not going to find a community of cyclops, minotaurs, and satyrs anytime soon.

How does this impact balance?

Like, at all?

Part of the BP value also represents the relative rarity of the character option.
That's terrible. Point costs should be based upon game effects not fluff-dependent. If a GM wants to reduce rarity, then the metatypes get cheaper even though the alterations are based on game stats? Really dumb...

I think we're getting back to the "Gee, Rocky, let's see what BP value we can pull out of our hat/ass."

It's really bad for balance. Not that the base metatypes were perfectly balalnced, but they had never built a system for pointing out all of the components to make up the race - now they have done so and they don't even use it. It makes me really doubt the value of it at all.

I like it the idea. From a purely metagame point of view it makes it less efficient...

But realistically, it supports the rarity of those metatypes.

I just love to get y'all riled up. In most cases, it's just an issue where it doesn't make sense for the metavariant to be cheaper than the race. I think the cost for Ogres is probably a typo.

I love it when rules lawyers get all riled up. "Dude, you didn't carry the one! The world is going to explode! It's going to throw a cramp in my mathematical exercise, the story you're all trying to have be damned! Allow me to reference six different rules and do some math for 45 minutes to show you!"

Holy crap, when did I turn into a crotchety old man?

As Ancient pointed out the Metavariant BP cost does indeed reflect rarity as well as the bonuses (similar to the Ork BP cost in the corebook). This was a design choice and one I stand behind, asking a gamemaster to enforce rarity of metavariant expression without something built into the system poses the same problem as asking a gamemaster to enforce rarity of Awakened characters among his group (which typically leads to the "But the rules say I pay the BP and I'm a magician, what do you mean I can't be a magician because Jack and Jill over there are already playing Awakened?" syndrome.)

I was actually talking about the Fomori.

What you've essentially done is given it 35 BP worth of positive qualities... for the price of 5. All it loses over the troll is the NA, and considering the Body it gets I'm thinking most are gonna see that as a fair trade. Put differently: in what build where the differences would come into play are things gonna be tight enough that a player won't go with the fomori?

Sorry, but I can not disagree more here. Fluff should not cost BP or Karma. And Fomori seem to be all over the world , following this 'logic'.

But the base races do not add up either. So what?

Doesn't ordinary Troll also give you 30-35 BP's of goodness, over what you pay for?

From that perspective, the meta-variants above range from mediocre to "acceptable". You get a rebate on the normal races, but here you have a few where you actually pay BP's for being that race, and others where you gain "less" than you could by being a normal ork or troll.

Probably right around the same time as me, cause I'm thinking the same thing

Easy. The one where I, as a GM (or player for that matter), say "WTF we already have two fomori. No you can't play one, enough's enough".

Which makes the Fomori even more unforgivable. If you're right, that means a Fomori should cost about 105 BP... but it costs 45.

From what I got, all metavariants come with Distinctive Style to some degree (unless they're in their "natural habitat") and that's why they get other perks for free.

Oh, so that's what Ancient meant. I hadn't considered the "This crime was committed by a fomori. There are three in Los Angeles." angle.

That's a pretty substantial disadvantage, yeah.

Under FrankTrollMan's House Rules, the metahuman races have a more balanced BP cost.

I agree the Metavariant BP costs are not to my tastes.

WMS

whut?
when did good ole frankie-boy put out rules for that? O.o
i must have missed those with his matrix-rules again and again ^^

I do not have RC as yet, but from what I have read, I like the new metavariants.

Real life's unfair. Life in Shadowrun is even more unfair. Some people just have more than what they pay for.

But even considering game balance™ for a minute, I recall a conversation I had with a friend. With a fixed BP for everyone, the higher the BP costs of single item, then more it must pay off. Why? Because "all dragon charactors look alike!" The reason is that you pay for the flexibility of that lower BP cost affords you.

While I respect Frank's work and enjoy reading his house rules, I find that one of the things that appeals to me concerning Shadowrun is that certain things aren't balanced. At least not at first glance or even when you read carefully. But consider with everyone running the same old "most borken" characters, who is more likely to get more karma from the GM? The Mr Most Min-Max or Dr Road Less Traveled?

Yup, imagine the rarity of the generic metatype in the region where your campaign is set, then of the fraction of those who are of your chosen metavariant and then think of how many of those are involved in the Shadows.
If your character has any kind of Street Rep, the Star KNOWS who he is. They might not have any dirt on you yet, but they have someone undercover for sure or get someone to talk in exchange for forgetting that drug possession charge...
Then if you get identified on a Run as "a guy with a steer snout" or similar, the Star's already narrowed it down to a handfull of people and an arrest warrand for you is filed in no time.
I agree that the BP costs appear too low but the possibility of the above-mentioned happening is all it takes to get me thinking twice.

There's the lightbulb.

Yeah, they are RARE unless you're in freakin Greece, or whereever, and even there, they are rarish. Think of them like awakened, where like 1% of all trolls in the world are Formori/Cyclops/Minos, and if you happen to be in Greece that might jump to 2-4% of the Trolls. That's probably a close enough for government work figure.

With the rarity issue then Oni should be cheaper than regular Orks if playing in Japan or an area with high Japanese population, Ogres are pretty damn common in Europe (>30% of robustus os still likely more common than either dwarfs or trolls), and Hobgoblins shouls be no more expensive than baseline Orks in the Middle East.

Are there actually GMs that tell a player what they can play based on the choices of the other players? "No, you can't be an Adept since one awakened character in the group is the limit. Play a vatjob instead." If so, then that's a gmae style that I abhor. Since it sounds like the game writers encourage this, I'll keep that in mind and give their suggested rules a healthy dose of scrutiny before accepting them. I'm finding I have very little love for this edition.

Remember that metavariants (and changelings) may buy metagenetic qualities, and the regular races can't.

You forgot to subtract between 5-35BP for Distinctive Style. There can't be all that Hobgoblins running around Seatle. Cyclops? Thats definitly -35BP.

If Seattle has a 20% Japanese-descended population (a fairly reasonable value), and roughly 20% of those are of the Ork metatype, and 75% of those express as Oni then roughly 3% of your population are Oni. IIRC, that's higher than ALL troll metatypes in the city.

Besides, using this dubious line of reasoning, that would lower the calcuated costs even more - making the Oni in the example worth even less than 15 BP while you're paying 25 BP.

Even worse, now you would need to incorporate 'regional costs' for the different metatypes if you want to use rarity/distincitiveness as a way of pointing them. But this wasn't done - there imust be some baseline (Seattle?) but it's not given.

Yes; me.

If the game world is supposed to represent only 10% awakened and group of players is 4-6 people, then I'm probably going to only allow 1 or 2 awakened character types. Granted, I also do not allow solo character creation for my games if I can avoid it and require players to meet and sit with each other as a group and discuss how their group came together. Sometimes it's obvious: you're all members of the same mercenary unit, for example. By doing this, I can say at the outset of that meeting what the team restrictions are and then work with the players to find roles and characters that they want to play.

That's a bit of a strawman, isn't it? If I was officiating a group and they all wanted to play TMs, I wouldn't say "No. You play this, you play that, and you over there play the other," I'd say "I think you guys are a little unbalanced, let's talk about adding some more variety."
I think the designers are assuming the gm and players are willing to collaborate on team makeup, rather than all racing to out-optimize each other. As a player, I would happily pay a small BP cost because something about the build inspired me, and as a GM I would try and reward that.

It's 1 % awakened.
If one wanted a group that represents average demographics, he should better look out for a decent gaming location housing 100 players if he allowed 1-2 awakened group members...

Runner groups aren't typical in the sense of average, even though they normally should be typical in the sense of certain specialty fields (hacking, magic, firepower, social skills, infiltration and so on) to be covered.

If my entire group absolutely wants to play awakened characters, fine.
A campaign revolving around a magical group or a crew of paraarcheologists might be interesting.
Or they'll go and try to build a complete runner team with awakened only (not that hard- dwarven houngan tank, hacker and face adept + a standard mage, there's your unusual, but mechanically well-rounded team).

Likewise, if 3 of the players want fomori as characters, i'd sit down together with the players and find a suitable background (troll community in Tir na nOg or whatever...).
If that doesn't work for the run i want to GM next, i might have to postpone it, but if i wouldn't utterly dislike a certain concept, i'd try to fit it into the game sometime.

Can work the other way around, too ("Hey, i got that scenario idea...but it's located in some place with absurd background count, awakened might not be the best choice, but wouldn't be needed either. Any problems with that?").

But yes, doing character creation together is absolutely neccessary, i'll totally second that.

For me as GM I place no such restrictions. My players usually have who is playing who, what etc done in advance. If they do not have all the positions covered in the party, as long as they have a contact or contacts to supply that position I have no issue(s). If they leave such not covered I will make it known the hazards at character creation, then let it go until it bites them on the arse.

WMS

Sorry Synner, I really find this to be ignorant to the players and to the GM and the type of game that they want to run. The metavariant BP cost should have been balanced and then there should have been a request to the GM to make sure not everybody plays a XXXXX or a Mage, or etc by WORKING WITH THE PLAYERS! Being a petty dictator and telling someone that they can't play what they want is just that, being petty.

The GM should try to work with his players and go: "OK everybody, you can all be mages, but who's going to be the Face, the Hacker, and/or the Muscle?" Using Daegaan's character generator I made a passable street sammy who has a Magic of 3. Is he a great mage? Nope. Is he a great Sammy? Nope. Is he a fun character that I might like to play? Yup. Which is the point of ANY role playing GAME... to have fun.

hell, there's gangs with more than one magical type in it . . SMALL gangs . . whiz-kid-gangs and gang-like magical groups . . even in the context of 1% of metahumanity being able to wield magic AT ALL that's too much . . same with meta-variants and about evrything else . . the numbers just don't freaking add up population wise, and not just build-point wise . .

It is not ignorant anything. Players all wanting to play one function is an expression of a better associated utility value. Getting fluff rarity into the math should not be put on the GMs shoulders. If you want to play a certain concept, 5-10 BP won´t kill the idea. The metagamer will care.

I still think it's ignorant. Everything should be balanced, and the reason it's not balanced is to enforce a fluff concept? That's not right. That's the job of the GM. The point cost should have been balanced and THEN tell the GM: "We balanced the point cost, but if you want to make XXXXX more rare, then increase the point cost. If you want it more common, then reduce the cost." The GM should have final say on the point cost for anything in the game.

A wholehearthed yes from me. Does that change with whatever value RAW assignes?

From a crunch perspective, balance is everything. From a fluff perspective, balance is nothing. The two should not ever be combined - they work together but separate. Crunch is the domain of the RAW, fluff that of the GM. Having RAW directly affected by fluff is nothing more than bad game design.

As for the issue of "they are rarer, so they cost more to discourage players from having a group of 5 [insert variant here]", it is by no means unusual to have a large group of a minority. If the Formori population is 1 per 10,000 metahumans, it is still perfactly reasonable to have a group of 3 or 4 working/hanging out together. Like attracts like. As a real-life example, there is only a small % of the population who are gothic, yet when you see them, there tends to be 4 or 5 at a time. The same goes for preps, cheerleaders, metalheads, scientists, rappers, etc.

Think of it what you will, in SR4 all racial BP costs were calculated with rarity in mind among other factors. Does this mean that there is a small penalty for people playing these "minorities"? To some extent yes. But this is part of the system and has been from the outset: the Nobel-winning scientist with an Aptitude and relevant Skill of 7 is equally "penalized" (by the cost of the additional BP in that Skill and the Aptitude) with regards to the top scientist who has a skill of 5 (or even 6). The same extends to any normal character who takes a Skill at 6; he is "penalized" by a whole 10 BP for just being one of the world's best in his field and taking that final level.

As has been mentioned metavariants have a number of intangible characteristics and traits that affect BP value regardless of the basic abilities and attibute stats. Some of this related to how prevalent they are and therefore how noticeable, how distinctive/freakish they seem, and how they are treated by other characters in the setting. But it also refers to the fact that not all options/races/species were created to be equal nor do we intend them to be treated equally when a character choses them. The individual choice of making a gnome shouldn't be the same as that of making a dwarf, even if all things were equal. All the metavariants available total less than 30% of the population of each basic metatype, and some metavariants are extremely rare.

It was never our intention for metavariants to be equally playable to the basic metatypes and to be comparable in straight Build Points, (outside specific campaign settings) they shouldn't be - and this factors into their cost. Note that rarity is just one aspect of it. In the case of a Pixie for instance the "intangibles" go into the realm of being 45cm tall and being able to fly.

We did want people taking albino nocturnal gnome shamans just because the maths added up to a better build, we wanted people to make SURGEd albino nocturnal gnomes shamans because they liked the concept despite a (small) additional cost for the fact that this is a highly unusual character within the demographics of the setting.

It isn't left up to a GM because this distinction between basic metatypes and metavariants is something that is universally true of the Sixth World setting regardless of what type of game/campaign you are playing.

And ultimately,as you yourself say, the gamemaster has final say in what works in his universe. If he doesn't like the RAW he can change it.

The hammer comes down.

World isn't fair. BP Costs for metavariants reflect that.

Yeah, orks ogres are the gameplay master race. They are even relatively common. Seriously though unless you need logic or charisma 5/6 they are fantastic.

Bull. Nothing is 'universally true' you write some books for a game I used to like, but that doesn't mean you dictate a damn thing about how it plays. Your explanation is terrible and it reflects what you want in your games while closing doors for people that want something different. I would hope that as a writer you would be a bit more open in your materials and trust GMs to do what's best with the peices you've given them.

I don't think we should expect balance at this level...you can't quantify the BP value of being unique any more than you can quantify the BP value of having social issues. Catalyst tried, but how many BP is uncouth worth, for example? Depends upon how many social tests you have to make...four per session? Once a campaign? I guarantee you it depends on whose table you're playing at. At our games, uncouth might ruin your character in one campaign, and you might not notice in another. So what exactly does "balanced" even mean?

The point being that some ways of building a set of dice pools are going to be cheaper, and some ways will be more expensive, but as long as they're reasonably close, that's balanced. Or as close as you're going to get.

Aptitude and skills above 5 both give distinct mechanical advantages to whoever purchases them, and it seems obvious that their extra cost compared to lower levels of the skill is there to discourage 'absolute' min-maxing - these are both concepts covered in game balance. Paying 'wasted' BP for a race because it's rare is not the same thing.



Actually, the choice of making a gnome should be the same as making a dwarf, to the player. Sure, there might only be a 1% gnome population (arbitrary), but in a city of 6 million (also arbitrary) that gives you 6 thousand gnomes. Is it really that unlikely that one of them turned to crime? Is it that unlikely that 5 or 6 of them did so together?

And even if your player wants to be the only centaur in seattle, what's the problem? Shadowrunners are meant to be atypical. I'm sure any GM worth his salt can make a race seem rare in the game world without having to ban characters from playing it.



No-one mentioned Pixies - the advantages and disadvantages of being half a metre tall and airborne are fairly obvious. We're talking about the more 'mundane' metavariants.



How is that your choice? People already play elven faces often because they are mechanically better. Make the race cost what it should mechanically and let people play whatever fluff they want to.



Except that it isn't universally true - rarity varies by region, yet if I'm playing a game set in Japan I have to pay more for and Oni because it happens to be rare in Seattle? Yes, the GM can change the costs if he likes, but he shouldn't have to spend time and effort correcting design flaws after shelling out $40+ for a book.



I agree that there are varying degrees of balance, and that the GM should feel free to ban certain ads/disads in certain games (if you're working in a mercenary company, uncouth might be worth a lot less than 20pts, for example), but arbitrarily adding points to a race at the design stage because you don't want people playing it is silly. If a GM wants to discourage people from playing a certain type of character by modifying point costs, that's good, but we expect a fair baseline to work with; the GM shouldn't have to modify a bunch of races down in cost to get things back to a baseline, simply because the designers took it upon themselves to tell us how to run our games.

When I buy a core book for a game, I (generally) expect two things: an interesting and unique game world, complete with backstory and plenty of room for plot hooks, and a fair and balanced set of rules, that ensure players are easily able to make a useful character with a minimum of fuss and maximum room for creativity. Arbitrarily adding points to things you think should be rare stifles the room for creativity while making said useful character.

And if you didn't want people playing these races, why produce rules for them at all?

If you want a game where everything is perfectly equal in build point to usefulness, shadowrun isn't a game for you

Only game I have ever seen that pulled that off was BESM, and I don't think they are around anymore. And the combat system was a little dull...

Compare an adept needing to up body with improved attribute (1 whole power point, 2 most likely) to a sammy who simply buys ware that will probably up that same attribute much more for much, much less build points. There are many, many more examples of this kind of thing.

There are decisions to make, if you don't want to spend the build points for that rare character, then don't. Or talk your GM into reducing the cost. Whatever.

Short answer: Because people wanted them.

Longer answer: Get your panties out of a twist. No one said we didn't want people playing these races, but the facts of life in the 2070s are that they are different. That's the appeal in playing them, and that's the cost. No one's stopping you from being an eight-legged centaur changeling called Sleipnirsdotter, but I'll be damned if you get to play him for the same price as an ork. Why? Becuase he's different, and we have to balance that somehow. Sometimes different equates to better, and sometimes different equates to being the Usual Suspect in any robbery featuring an unusually intelligent horse, but if you want to play it you pay for it. It's no different than choosing to be a troll instead of a human, expect a little more out there on the fringe and a bit more expensive (okay, a lot more expensive - have you seen the abilities on some of those critters?) People begged for some of these advanced character options, and they were delivered, reasonably balanced, fairly easy to use, and ready to plop in your game. The only things we really put our foots down about were ghosts, storm dolphins, merrow, dragons, obsidimen, and a kind of talking tree...and, well, some things I can't tell you about because I still have hopes for them.

Poor Form! You are usually a voice of reason on this forum and to tell someone to get their "panties out of a twist." is just rude.



Except for that 8 legged Centaur you're paying 50 pts (35 for Centaur + 15 for Shiva "Arms") rather than 20 for being an ork. Since 50 > 20 then playing a 8 legged horse is payed for with Build Points. Now you might say "Distinctive Style", and to that I would say that being a Centaur is distinctive enough thank you. The character should not be able to take that flaw.



Any ability should be balanced out with BP cost. Drakes (as you well know) cost an extra 65 build points! That's enough to get Magic 6 for a regular metahuman. The Drake character is at distinct disadvantage as compared to a regular character. Yes he gets some wiz abilities, but in terms of other abilities, he's behind the 8 ball as compared to a regular human mage. He can't get cyber/bioware because he would lose his Magic and therefore waste his 65 pts.



Those types of characters should not be in a Shadowrun group. Dragons running the Shadows? That's bordering on the munchkin.

The reason why we are all annoyed is I imagine that most of us have dealt with the retarded D&D 'monster character system' which almost inevitably punished you hugely for wanted to play something outside of the box.

It is weird and disappointing to see the same system and attitude here.

I would also dispute the reasonably balanced option. Free spirits at 250 bp nor ogres at 20BP are even close to balanced.

The question still stands. Why even give us rules for free spirits when the designer says that they priced significantly above what he saw as reasonable.

If you think that rarity pricing is okay, can you produce a balanced, playable free spirit starting character (i.e. 400BP)?

Voice of reason? Moi? Vol forfend! Besides, you know I meant it in the nicest possible way - considering the person being spoken of was being whiny and illogical about the whole deal.


Ah, c'mon. You can't tell me a centaur hacker whose agents all look like My Little Ponies doesn't deserve "Distinctive Style." Far be it from me to put such constraints on players.


Not to put a fine point on it, but that's why it's called "balance." You're trading your 65 points for the ability to turn into a dracoform (which can fly and breath fire, minimum) and an innate Magic attribute of 1, among other things. No one's forcing you to do this, and it works out not too badly in the end.

(Drakes can of course, get various augmentations, but the Essence/Magic trade-off is as old as the game and we need not go into its vagaries and details here.)


Such was said when drakes were first introduced in Threats 2 and Dragons of the Sixth World (well, be fair, ever since Ryan Mercury). Of course, the same argument has been laid against magicians (particularly enchanters and mystic adepts, but let us not forget the ancient and popular street druid), hackers, six-million nuyen street samurai, metavariants, ghouls, shapeshifters, albinos, and people that try to sneak around with day-glo pink neon mohawks.

Let it be said: some characters are better suited for some campaigns than others, and many of these character options do require more work on the part of the player and the gamemaster to be used effectively, but the can be made to fit - not in every campaign, but in enough that I would argue (and did) that they should be included as character options.

Now, the real question for all the fussy-britches out there is: are you up for the challenge?

Well, we tried in the free spirit thread but we couldn't see any really playable way to do it.

Can you please offer some advice, rather than making comments that have been seen as offensive by some viewers? Especially given that the original developer has said that the price has been increased by 294% (!) over his final draft?

We're looking at 400 BP starting characters - the 'standard' game - and prefarbly something that won't end up looking completely retarded next to a full magician (who can, remember, summon his own spirits and use foci)

I didn't write the free spirits chapter. Try pinging Aaron with an IM, that's my advice. As the guilty party, he should be able to answer your questions no-problemo. Myself, I still have to read those rules a couple more times before I feel confident answering questions on 'em.