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ElFenrir
So, in all of this, once again I ask...what is twinking? I'm actually thinking of writing an article on this for a 'zine I write for.

Thing is, everyone's kinda got a differing opinion of it. To some, twinking is flat-out being a munchkin-in my opinion, this is going to harsh. I always considered a munchkin in a class of their own-AKA a douchebag who wants to ruin fun at the table for everyone else and ''win the game'' no matter the cost. I won't even be discussing them here.

To some of you here-what do you consider twinking?

Say character A is an elf gunbunny adept-takes the soft-max Agility, maxes Pistols, takes Improved Pistols, specializes, and perhaps gets a personalized grip and smartlink. Character B is playing a dwarf magician; they soft-max Willpower and Logic, take Magic 5, get a power focus, and pump up Spellcasting and specialize in their choice of spelltype. Character C is a face who soft-maxes Charisma, takes adept powers, Kinesics, improved social skills, etc.

IMO, these characters are simply trying to be great at what they do. I never considered twinking and ''being awesome at something'' the same thing-but in addition, I never really thought twinking was bad necessarily.

In my mind, it goes from ''being awesome'', to ''twinking'' when the character starts to sacrifice a whole lot of stuff to be uber awesome instead of just awesome. Those three characters above, if made in that way, still have plenty of room to branch out(the gunbunny could make himself pretty nice in close combat as well, the dwarf could be a good techie on the side, the face also a hacker, for example.) Character A might hard-max Agility, take Aptitude, and the like. B might max Magic, hard-max Willpower, and the like; C could do the same thing.

I have that recent character I made, whom I wanted to be a techie who could take care of himself if a fight broke out. Since he's a changeling with Satyr Legs, I put a couple adept points into getting him some combat abilities, and took advantage of the fact he got a pretty nice kicking power bonus, has claws, and there is the Kick Attack maneuver. Likewise, a bit into Great Leap/Imp Gymnastics/Running takes advantage of his leg bonuses, as well. Is that twinking...or just taking advantage of something you have? Is it twinking to make ''The Poisoner Assassin'', whom uses mad Adept powers in getting Natural Immunity, and then make a Dwarf so you get the bonus to make him more resistant to toxins, so he can pull the ''hehe...I poisoned BOTH glasses!''

So where does ''twinking'' come in with you guys? Do you look at it as the same thing as ''wanting to be awesome?'' Is there usually great sacrifices involved? Does it involve ''creative rules interpretation?''

Just curious. We talk about twinks a lot, and started to discuss it in the Troll Tank thread, and judging by what folks say, it means something different to everyone.
Magus
nyahnyah.gif
I love twinkies! That soft and delicate yellow spongecake filled with that yummy sweet cream filling
Oh God that is so awesome.

When I twink out It is with the intention of making a God in mortal flesh. My pornomancer adept was a prime example.
I wanted to be able to command the board as in a game of chess with my voice alone. I did it, and it was not so fun. I soon retired him as an NPC face.
paws2sky
For me, the big difference is how far you go in building your character.

If you're making a characeter who's supposed to be really good at something, a specialist, you ought to soft maxing the linked attribute, max your skill, take a specialization, and getting a modest additional bonus (+2 or +3), either from magic, implants, or an equipment bonus. With that you should be looking at a 14-16 dice pool. You're extremely at what you do, but there are still a few people who are better. This, IMO, is not being twink-ish.

Compare to the character who breaks the 20+ dice pool mark, with maxed exceptional+optimized attribute, max skill, specialization, skill aptitude, maxed equipment bonuses, and so on. These characters squeak out every last possible trick to completely max their dice. There is no one better. You can't do anything else, but dammit, no one is better than you! And if something new comes out that lets you squeak out an extra die or two, you're all over it like flies on shit. Congrats, you are now a twink.

Hope that makes sense.

-paws
Coldhand Jake
I think it really comes in, not at the points value, but at the player. When you build "THE ULTIMATE SNIPER LIKE THAT GUY ON GHOST IN THE SHELL OMG", and crank and fine-tune your stats till you are, in fact, the best... how do you bring that to the table? Is it "This guy's based of Saito in GitS, he's got a cyber-eye, and satellite uplink, and enough military hacking progs to make it an autosuccess, and he drops over 30 dice to snipe ur ass." This is the guy who lords his build over other ranged combatants, casters, and anyone else he -percieves- getting into his area of expertise. And gods forbid you call his roleplay into question, becaue suddenly his seven-foot-long genitalia-substitute is poking your character in the chin like it's a bad porno. This is a munchkin, of the worst caliber.

Now, the exact same build can cross a table, and you get the player behind it going "This is Saito, yes, I know he's a ripoff, but I really liked the character and I'm not really that good at names or coming up with new character ideas on the fly. Mike helped me build this guy,(points at the munchkin) so he's alot like the original Saito. He's human, Japanese, dark-haired, and pretty quiet, one of those guys really focused on the job, and his obvious cyber probably isn't making him feel any more socially confident. He's a trained special forces guy, and can handle himself up close, and can stay quiet during an interrogation and study the target for signs of lying, but don't expect him to face. When we do runs, he'd prefer to handle any gunnery or sniping jobs, as that's where his skills are."
-This- player has the exact same sheet in front of him. But he knows how to bring a powerhouse concept to the table without stepping on toes, and saves his braggadocio for the NPCs, looking for sniper battles and high-intensity gunnery scenes. He's playing the character, not the sheet. You'd never know he was playing a complete twink build until those dice hit the table. If he's not trying to turn every fight into dragging out the damn sniper rifle, he's not outshining the whole party with that fat dice pool.

Attitude is everything.
Tarantula
Twinks and munchkins have the same kinds of characters. Twinks have them because they want to be the best at what they do. Muchkins have a different attitude, and want to beat everyone else at it.

Its all in the outlook/methodology.
ArkonC
QUOTE (Tarantula @ Sep 12 2008, 07:50 PM) *
Twinks and munchkins have the same kinds of characters. Twinks have them because they want to be the best at what they do. Muchkins have a different attitude, and want to beat everyone else at it.

Its all in the outlook/methodology.

QFT!
Cain
QUOTE (Tarantula @ Sep 12 2008, 09:50 AM) *
Twinks and munchkins have the same kinds of characters. Twinks have them because they want to be the best at what they do. Muchkins have a different attitude, and want to beat everyone else at it.

Its all in the outlook/methodology.

Got it in one.

It's not the min/maxing that twinks out a character. I've seen characters with 20+ dice who still came out well rounded, and I've seen much weaker characters that were still twinked out. It's all in the outlook, and attitude.
Squinky
I am sometimes called a twink or munchkin by my group smile.gif

I sometimes have to stop myself, because things can go too far.

My name is Squinky....And I am a powergamer.... smile.gif

My main problem I have is this, when people tell me my character is too Uber.

If you were a person who put their life on the line, wouldn't you seek out this gear and upgrades? Wouldn't you want to be damned good at what you do?

So, I just get going down a path, and I have to actually make myself stop. Sure, I can make that cyborg with 40+ armor, but do I really want to?

I never sacrifice character for numbers, but I do tend to spend days building a character, and cross referencing them to death.
PlatonicPimp
No, no, he's got the right Idea. Both Twinks (which one possible etimology of is a corruption of tweak) and munchkins use the same skill set, but one uses it for good, the other for evil.

I can attest to this. I am a twink. Unashamedly so, and I'm damn good. At my FLGS, I swept every catagory of the first powergaming competition, and tied for first in the second. They simply cancelled the third when they saw my character build. When my friends tried their hands at game design, they brought their systems to me for me to break. In the game that gives you cancer, I once had a dwarven bard character build turned away from the table for being too powerful. A Dwarven Bard.

To me, Powergaming is an efficiency game. As a twink, I look to get the most out of every single resource a game gives me. For example, again in cancerland, the artificer class gives you a homunculus as a class feature. It's stats are so damn low that I don't think it could take a cat on, and it doesn't even provide feats for free like a spellcaster's familiar. But I found uses for that little guy, more than once bypassing carefully laid GM plans with creative use. That, to me, is twinking, not getting the highest number you can, neccessarily, but making full use of every resource you can get your hands on.

A munchkin always goes for the "best" character builds. You'd never catch one playing a technomancer pre-unwired, they'll always come to the table with the AR-hacking Street Sam, or the Pornomancer. You could almost always find their character build online somewhere as an example of where the rules break.

But as a twink, I choose a character type or role, and then put my powergaming to use to make what might otherwise have been ineffective into something awesome. Like a Homunculus that maps the dungeon while we sleep. How can my weakness become strength, how can this minor resource be turned to my advantage?

I'd love a twink as a player in my games. My GMs always loved me. Because My characters were always interesting, but never sacrificed effectiveness for it. Because I knew the rules better than them but fairly applied them, allowing them to concentrate on storytelling more. Because in the end, the good GM wants the characters to succeed, and I could make sure that happened. And because I usually gave character creation tips to the other players that tightened their character builds too.

Thats twinking and me.
ReverendMo
Pretty good point about everyone seeing it differently, I've had some very interesting debates (read: arguing and bickering) with numerous players in many different games over this. Apologies in advance to the long posting, just trying to be detailed.

In my mind there are three main types of twinking, most relating to the player and their relation to the group. Power level is a big portion of it, but I've seen huge differences cause no trouble and small ones bring down games just due to how the player handles things.

The first and most common type in my experience is the uber-specialist: Similar to the munchkin, this is the player that will do their best to start out as the de facto world-reknowned internationally famous superstar at X second to none. NPCs and other players are expected to laud and heap respect upon this twink for their epic-ness and the mention of their name causes their foes to hide in a corner and drek themselves. This type of twink can often be identified by the player attempting to justify using X for *everything* as well as frequent comments about how anything rated below a 5 is trash and/or a waste of time/nuyen/karma that could've gone into X instead. Not to be confused with a "normal" specialist that similarly focuses primarily on X but also has some skill elsewhere that they use, for example your Satyr tech specialist with some combat ability or perhaps the Sam with a bit of hacking who tries to crack the door code *before* jumping into blowing it to hell.

These guys can work in high-powered games, but can be a real problem if there's two with the same/similar focus or if a real challenge comes up as they often go ballistic trying to outdo/destroy anything that dares to not respect them enough.

The second type I admit I'm often guilty of: the long-term twink. We're the folk who make decent to sometimes really patheti-sad characters power-wise in exchange for the Advantages that, should the game run for a long enough period, can make the character sickeningly powerful. For example, a Pistols Street Sam with maybe two skills at 3, two attributes at 4, the rest 2<, but the Increased Max Attribute Agility, Increased Max Skill Pistols, etc. This type is rare as it takes patience to become a Master at whatever, and often starts with a lot of drawbacks: not as skilled, squishier, etc. Most twinks can't handle being not-the-best, let alone long enough for this method to pay off. Fortunately these twinks often work well with groups, especially as the char won't live long enough to become epic without help.

This type of twink can be difficult to spot because they're not usually overtly-twinkish and again usually try and work well with the group. Also often a hardcore roleplayer (because few others would willingly nerf themselves right off the bat). Can cause some trouble should the game last long enough for Advantages/Merits/etc to start really kicking in, but tends to take a long time.

The third and final type of twink is the Twink-of-All-Trades: Almost wholly created by the Rules Laywer, as few others truly know the ins and outs well enough to pull this one off. This would be the Full Mage with Biocompatability, Type-O System, social/mental boosting bioware, the hottest deck they can get their hands on with matching programs and Pilots, etc. This is the one that can singlehandedly replace over half the team, if not all, due to diligent minmaxing and often attempts to do just that, not noticing how many other toes they smash into dust.

That's my view and list, again sorry for the length hehe
ElFenrir
Oh, no problems. I mean, I'm glad I got these responses. Many of them really sort of also agree with my point of view.

I like to twink, judging by the description. I like to have a damn effective character. But yes, yes, and yes-it's attitude. I don't make someone awesome at X to beat the team-if it fits said character, it fits. Hell, you can have a great roleplayer at your table who doesn't try to outshine everyone with their awesomeness(like the GitS two examples), and the ''munchkin'' of the group might have LESS and be whining, moaning, and carrying on about it. In this case, the twink is much more welcome at my table, while the munchkin is not.

Interesting mention of the ''long term twink.'' Not really noticable right off the bat, but give them even something like 50-75 karma and watch.

The way I end up twinking is:

A. I like to be particularly good at something. If not awesome at one thing, really good at two things. I'm a ''hybrid'' kind of fan.

B. I always take character into consideration. If they have a drawback in my head, they have a drawback on the paper. Weaknesses aren't a bad thing with a character. I don't believe that you HAVE to gimp a character somewhere ''because you feel bad'', but realistic weaknesses are just fine.

C. I like lots of little rounding skills. Sometimes, after getting ''the biggies'', my skill lists look impossibly long due to the list of 1(+2)'s and 2(+2)s and the like. On the surface, when a character has this, they can indeed look overpowered(especially with a couple strong Attributes to back them up.) But even a character with a 5 charisma and all the social skills at 2(+2) isn't outfacing the team's face anytime soon. Help them? Certainly, and one of the awesome benefits of a face having friends good at social skills with the helping rule(group twinking!) Be able to fend for themselves socially if need be? Sure. But they aren't taking over their job. Likewise, the combat mage who'se physically adept with 4's and good skills in guns and his fists probably isn't taking Frank the Sam's job, but he's not going to have to run and dive in a dumpster when the first shots are taken-nor will he have to risk draining himself by only relying on spells.

I guess I go ''ok, so what are the top 2-3 things this character is going to be good at?'' And tweak up the appropriate attributes and skills from there.

Oh, and:

QUOTE
It's stats are so damn low that I don't think it could take a cat on


You do know what cats do to people in cancerland. It'd be a miracle if a homonculus could take on one. grinbig.gif
Nkari
Im with platonicPimp here.. I LOVE rules.. I LOVE experimenting with diffrent builds.. I spend days sometimes getting every point out of a character.. because if shadowrun was real, I would do the exact same thing in the real world. I try to find uses for everything, and I try not to over specialice in one thing, but I make sure that I am damn good at what my main focus is, and try to be good at atleast 1-2 more things.. this is where I find 400 bp a bit to little, I prefere 450 bp.. then I can spend another 50 or so bp on secondary skills, I still only use 200 bp for stats etc..

I hate ppl who overspecialize.. thank god my gaming group have zero clues on how to build shadowrun chars.. =))
Naysayer
I think attitude is definitely a big part of it, as is intent. Striving for an effective character is no crime. This is a game, and the numbers are a part of this game. The schtick that only a crippled build with horrible stats is a viable roleplaying character has been up so many righteous butts that we shouldn't ever pick it up again.*

To me, there's nothing wrong with fiddling around with a build to squeeze out a die or two for skills that you feel fit your character, even if you pay for those with an allergy to latex. At least as you don't go overboard with it, but I always assume a certain common base of sensibility until proven otherwise.
That's not really twinking to me, though, more like thorough tweaking.
Twinking, or "bad" tweaking, to me starts when the character starts taking the back-seat to the numbers, and/or if the character begins lacking consistency. Personally, I get a bit annoyed at things like picking a certain race only for the stat-bonus, like going for elf with a shaman build only because of the charisma-boost. This goes even more for builds like the ork-gunbunny with minimum strength - I know you don't need strength to shoot your guns, and I know 3 is at least average strength... for a human! But to all your ork buddies, you're a wimp! It gets even worse if all other physical stats are through the roof. You have the stamina of a raging bull, can outdraw the devil, but couldn't out-punch a kitten? That's not a character, not a person, that's only numbers, and they don't make sense and I disapprove.
That, to me is twinking out, the bad kind, the one that has a bad rep, and rightly so.*

*Of course, if you play this way and have fun, more power to ya! It's a game, it's all about the fun, yadda yadda let's have a hugout!
venenum
QUOTE (Nkari @ Sep 12 2008, 02:33 PM) *
Im with platonicPimp here.. I LOVE rules.. I LOVE experimenting with diffrent builds.. I spend days sometimes getting every point out of a character.. {snip}


That is how I define a twink. Someone who plays with the numbers, yet may not always take the most uber set. I am a Twink, I will always crunch the numbers on a character, yet not nessecarilly take the strongest one becuase I like to roleplaye.
Wasabi
IMO a munchkin is an adversarial twink who detracts from others enjoyment of the game.
Gast
As long as the group's fun, everyone can be a die hard powergamer or a brilliantly balanced and believable roleplayer in there. It's just awkward to enter a con group with a balanced character and realize too late that all the other guys are total machines. Different characters for different playstyles, I'd say.
Cain
QUOTE (Wasabi @ Sep 12 2008, 01:00 PM) *
IMO a munchkin is an adversarial twink who detracts from others enjoyment of the game.

There's a lot of problem players and munchkin-types that aren't super-twinks. In all cases, it's attitude and willingness to share the limelight that separate good players from bad.

One type of munchkin I've encountered, I like to call The Drama Queen. They like to think they're roleplaying; but their goal is to sit on top of the social heap, in and out of game. Their characters come in all stripes, but they're frequently not min/maxed heavily. In fact, some will deliberately nerf their characters, so that they can look down on powergamers, and refer to them as munchkins. The Drama Queen will always hog the spotlight at every chance he gets, and to hell with the other players.
Shiloh
For me, "Twinking" and "Munchkinism" and "Minimaxing" are different things.

"Twinking" is where one character of yours provides an unexpected advantage to another character for no readily apparent reason. Obviously this definition doesn't often apply in Sadowrun, and 'm kicking myself for slackly using it in that other thread.

"Munchkinism" is the pursuit of "power" without regard for other considerations, mostly that the munchkin's definition of power is very narrow and concerned directly with conflict.

"Minimaxing" (aka powergaming) is the careful application of the rules to make a character that's "the best", often "the best [something in particular]" but also, just "the best at everything in general that can be achieved with the points available. So they might not be the *best* gunfighter, or face or meleeist or driver or hacker, but they're a *close second* in all those, maybe.

Munchkinism is a problem because of the world view of the player: when they find that the minimaxer is only 1 or 2 dice short of their inefficiently munchkinned character, and that their munchkin focus isn't actually useful for 95% of the game, they can become disillusioned with the game.

Minimaxing is a problem when only one player achieves it, since they can dominate play time by being active, effectively and legitimately, in almost every scene, or because they're the most obscene single-focus monster out there, and can find ways to make every problem a nail to their very effective hammer.
Pendaric
For me a twink is someone that manipulates the character creation rules to effect the 'great build effect'. What consitutes twinking is defined by the group the palyer is in. A 'all about the drama' ganger game with a character who is solid runner may term that character's player a twink. Conversly a game with the uber runners with every character min max to absolute stats would deem such a character a waste of points

It is how, where and why you place points on the sheet and of course in which game.
TKDNinjaInBlack
To me, twinking, munchkining, minmaxing, and powergaming are all the same. They're all synonymous. They just describe the act of using the system to max out an aspect of a character. These builds can create some pretty interesting characters and can sometimes make the roleplaying lots of fun for the group. But this depends on how the player acts with his character. This brings me to my real point about this.

Most of the time a player powergames, it's not any fun for the group. This is because the skill or ability they always max out is the one skill they use for everything. And for everything I really mean the cure all, end all [i]EVERYTHING[i]. My first game we had a street sam who could shoot anything he wanted with his automatics skill and kill it dead. Didn't matter what it was or how armored, even if he tried to bypass the most hardened amounts of armor, he'd still do it. I forget how many dice he rolled, but it was around just under 30. It was actually pretty awesome. Gunfights became "How many men could he drop before the rest of the team got to act." But that's just it. Everybody else always played second fiddle to him. Soon, he was using guns for everything. Open doors by shooting through them instead of letting our B&E ninja get in, blasting drones instead of letting our rigger/hacker hyjack them, threating and shooting contacts instead of letting our face negotiate. Hell, he even made our mage useless by beating most mid level spirits' immunity to normal weapons. Everything was about him and how awesome he was at this skill and when he had enough of ruining our game, he got bored because he couldn't improve that one skill anymore and left. Our GM who was so flustered didn't know what kind of enemies to throw at us anymore and we in general couldn't salvage that campaign.

It doesn't matter what skills are minmaxed, because it could be any. The Pornomancer that makes all contacts do what he wants. The Adept Hacker that cuts through systems and makes the team do absolutely no work because he disabled everything. The Mage who binds force 12 spirits to conceal the team so they can't be seen as they walk up and take what they want or makes his spirit kill whatever he needs dead. Having the skills to god game isn't the problem, it's the abuse of those skills that take away from the other players that is the problem.

Cain brings up an interesting point about "sharing the limelight." That's the key. Keep things equal and fair amounts of play time for everyone involved, and you'll have a successful game regardless. It isn't PvP, it's cooperative. Someone hogging the role playing sure treats it like PvP with the idea whoever can take up the most time with their skill wins.

Stahlseele
i, myself, am one of the most twinky character min/maxers . . but if you call me power-gamer, i will be very cross . .
i do those things, because, damn it, if i am going to play someone who risks his very life doing what ever he does, he had better be good enough in his chosen field of experience to stay frigging alive long enough to make any progress and to have a good shot at realising his life's goal even without the GM coddling me/my character . . if i build a samurai, hell yes, he will have fragging huge success chances with most everything concerning anything combat related . . if i make a face, he will look innocent enough to charm/swindle a frigging dragon out of something he wants . . and the mage had better roll out with the huge shiney effecty that bring much joy/chaos(depending on which side of the magical effects you happen to be located) without dropping unconscious or better, even dead . .
but i usually tend to keep to the background, even WITH such characters . . i don't NEED to let my Giant of 3.5m size, armed with a PAC and a Vindicator to kill everything in sight . . it's enough to have him STANDING AROUND LOOKING LIKE A GIANT ARMED LIKE A SMALL TANK . . if i don't need to roll a single die in an entire run, because the rest of the group managed to keep the run stealthy, then so be it, i am happy for them . . i usually play to play with my buddies, not to run a certain kind of game . . but if i DO get to roll dice in whatever my character is supposed to do? yeah, i wanna mess with the big guys and have a decent enough chance to actually get away with it . .
and i won't stop at twinking/min-maxing such things either . . once i had a character that rolled 20 to 30 dice in his chem-tech skills . . with a target number of 3 in most cases . . or the athlete who can do almost anything with his body due to a target numbr of 2 and up to 20 dice too . . it may not be doing him anything good, but if i get to do what i want to do, i want to do it GOOD!
toturi
To me, there is no such thing as powergaming, munchkining, twinking, etc. There is none. There is however RAW-legal or not and GM-allowed or not. I tend to encourage my players to build effective and efficient characters. But making games unfun is a property of the person and the people(his fellower gamers and GM) he interacts with.
Voran
Lets see...I'm not exactly sure where I picked the term up, but for me, Twinking was a situation where you either set it up so you're getting loads of stuff (either through narrative) or through a former character that would set you above the general starting guidelines for a 'new' character. This evolved from games where GMs had you write backstories, and you had players who tried to write in they're royalty, or bazillionaires or a hundred other reasons why they end up with extra gear, magical lewt, awesome mutant powers, etc. As MMORPGs evolved, it turned into "Yeah I'm using my lvl 70 orc hunter to twink my newbie chars" you give them gold, or stored lewt suitable for their level, or stuff you bought in the auction house.

Min/Maxing, Powergaming, Munchkinism are kinda related, but also potentially separate. It's possible to have the whole spectrum, or have one without the others, you can even skip steps entirely.

Min/Maxing is where it starts. Generally speaking, this isn't too bad. Its optimization of your character or build. That being said, you're not really intending, or wanting to intend, to develop a perfect character able to survive and thrive in all situations. I prefer characters with an overall balanced build, with some focus in whatever areas I've chosen to 'specialize' in.

There's a subset of Min/Maxing that starts towards powergaming/Munchkinism. This is when you start looking beyond optimized and start looking at, "how much can I sacrifice to get a really good boost and still not be impaired?" Its more of a mindset issue, as ultimately the mechanics are the same the general min/max optimizer uses. At this point, you start taking OOC factors into play: "Eh, we're not likely to play this campaign more than a year or so, real life time" where you can start throwing together characters like...well...frankly, the RIFTS Juicer char, chemically/nano/etc augmented supersoldier, with a limited lifespan. Who cares if the char only will live 2 or 3 years in game? I'll just make a new one.

A next step in the evolution of the scale is another mindset switch. Generally, at least until you had things like pre-designed character builds (d20 had it, look at the WoTC boards, you'll see "Character build to level 20, or level 30", all MMORPGs have it: "How to build your Hunter to level 70". At this point, you no really longer care about the experiences of the game as much as the xp it gives you to fill out your build. 4th ed DnD isn'ts quite as bad at the moment, the way they changed classes and multiclasses and prestige classes. But 3x and before, you had stuff like Fighter 2/goober 5/ninjah4/technomancer 3/demigod 6, all designed in a precise order before you actually played the game. You step away from the experiential (so to speak) and focus more on the mechanics of experience and build. In this case often, you're 'happy' because you've created a combat monster/master of all trades/can one shot greater gods kinda char.

Whats interesting is that from what I've seen as you get more into the scale, you also get more defensive and protective. You take sorta a reactive stance, not really experiencing or 'growing' anymore, in a way, you NEED things to turn out a certain way, because you need to survive long enough to complete your build. The gamers I've been in groups with that tend to do this, also tend to react poorly when the GM, or the peers of the group start going, "Dude, isn't that a bit much?"

Whats fun is back in the day in college, while some of us were taking psych, it was fun to point out all the defense mechanisms we saw (or did ourselves) when asked uncomfortable questions. Rationalization and projection tended to pop up alot.

Best I can tell, a powergamer is a mindset thing. It becomes more munchkin as you start incorporating stuff like min/maxing to an extreme, as well as a couple other factors. Powergamers want to win. Winning, in general, is cool. We all like to win. Powergamers need to win. These are the guys that pull in creative interpretations of rules, or rules exploits to twist a game system to allow them to do things that the designers probably didn't intend. Powergamers want to be the best, be acknowledged as the best, and rather dislike it (and can sometimes be seen screaming foul or hax or GM cheat!) when they come up against something better, more capable than them, or immune to their chosen approach.

A variation on this is...hmm...ah, the guys that want to be the Snipah! or super-ninjah!, or take an obscure method of killing that per game mechanics has less defense against, on the OOC knowledge that generally the game mechanics means they can more easily whack/kill/succeed vs most potential threats. Yet these can also be the ones that get all bent when the GM throws it back at them. Whaaaat? NPCs can't snipe us! Whaaat? The NPCs ambushed us while we're sleeping and we never got a roll?

Now in general, I do kinda find this gm behavior kinda heavy handed, but its often a good point. PCs that powergame are the ones that really don't like it when GMs take the tactics the Pgamer has used and flip it back on them.

Munchkins. Munchkins cheat. They abuse game systems willingly. The munchkin is not above dice-cheating, or writing stuff onto their sheet when no one is watching. These are the guys you don't trust to roll dice, and have to come up with stuff like "YOU need to roll THESE dice in THIS box, or they don't count" or "You no longer get to keep track of your HP, since you 'forget' to mark them off on a regular basis".

A munchkin can be a powergamer and can be a min/maxer. But they don't have to be. Munchkins are potentially a subset of the 'newbie player' who simply ends up cheating cause they don't know better. Its not really their fault, and as a Gm these are the ones you go gently with, reminding them of rules or responsibilities such as marking/keeping track of their character, until the behavior either changes or becomes habitual/problematic.

When you get a combination of a munchkin powergaming min/maxer, ugh. that just sucks. You now more often than not, have a lopsided character build specifically designed to destroy all opposition (combat, social, technical, magical, whatever their focus), who uses loopholes and "Well, it doesn't say you CAN'T do it" as well as someone who'll cheat even when the rules say they can't do it.

It trolls!
To me, twinking is the process of going ridiculously deep into the details of the ruleset to achieve a minor bonus. For example, instead of just buying the essential analysis + encryption programs for your commlink at chargen, the player starts grabbing customized agents and programs with lots of options and redundant systems for nearly every single piece of gear that has wifi access - on his shaman - just because there might be a chance that one day an enemy hacker will break into his maglock passkey and print insults on the display, thereby ruining the whole run.

Edit: I might also call my definition "Dumpshock Disease"
Fyndhal
First off, I've not read the thread as of yet. I will once I complete this post, then if needed, I'll edit or delete if I'm being redundant. I want to write up my thoughts independent of others first, though.

Twinking, in MMO terms, is giving a beginning character equipment or resources beyond what they would normally have access to on their own. This requires outside assistance in the form of existing more powerful characters, guildmates or the "Real Money Transfer" services.

In a PNP game, I don't really think Twinking is a huge issue, since GMs have complete control over it.

There are two other terms which I believe are more appropriate to PNP games: Powergaming and "being a munchkin." These two are very similar, and are differentiated mainly by how extreme the practice of Min/Maxing a character is taken and the intention of the player involved.

Powergamers tend to over min/max a character. While nearly all players min/max to a certain degree (most characters are meant to be better than average at something!) a powergamer takes it one (or more) steps further. A character with a Body of 5 and a base Strength of 1 (Cybered up to 5) is almost certainly in powergamer territory. If something is hard to justify from a "realism" standpoint, but is mechanically within the rules -- that is powergamer territory.

Munchkins are basically Powergamers with a bad attitude. They'll "forget" certain rule limitations or outright lie about things to get things past the other players and the Game Master. They aren't concerned about the "health" of the game, only in being the best/most powerful.

EDIT: Looks like I'm in agreement with most folks, although terminology is a bit off. Good to know!
Falconer
I dunno... I really like the name "Twink of all Trades" I think I'll start using it as a badge of honor. (one of my fondest recent accomplishments was successfully breaking the bard).

But I think that has to do more with... it's better to have a lot of usable dicepools in a lot of widely applicable skills. Than to have a massive dicepool in one to three things. To beginning or 'lesser' players, yeah its easy to have the short list of 3 things you can do and pick from those three. But to be a true jack of all trades you have to be open to a much larger range of options and be able to clearly identify the odds. As well as be able to consistently pick 'acceptable' or 'good' options while realizing you're not always going to have 'great' ones. Oftentimes knowing what is acceptable or good, requires a knowledge of how the rules apply so you can consistently pick the better ones.

I hate playing one trick ponies because they're remarkably easy to shut down for any GM w/ half a brain.

Yes, I am that guy who's asked to look at peoples systems and house rules and identify what's broken and how. Though I have a very large discipline about not using things I consider broken. I'm a huge fan of 'turnabout is fair play' if I don't want it abused against me, I won't abuse it in the first place.
Naysayer
QUOTE (It trolls! @ Sep 12 2008, 09:53 PM) *
To me, twinking is the process of going ridiculously deep into the details of the ruleset to achieve a minor bonus. For example, instead of just buying the essential analysis + encryption programs for your commlink at chargen, the player starts grabbing customized agents and programs with lots of options and redundant systems for nearly every single piece of gear that has wifi access - on his shaman - just because there might be a chance that one day an enemy hacker will break into his maglock passkey and print insults on the display, thereby ruining the whole run.

Edit: I might also call my definition "Dumpshock Disease"


Yeah, QFT!
Glyph
A lot of so-called twinking is simply logical choices in character creation, in a game that rewards specialization. Someone with a high Body adding form-fitting body armor and PPP to make their armor higher isn't being a twink - what do you think concealable armor that adds to existing armor was put in the game for? Someone playing a face with things like kinesics and tailored pheromones is getting stuff that a professional negotiator would logically pick up.

The trouble is when people make a lot of non-game based assumptions on what "reasonable" dice pools or "believable" Attributes are, and rather than sharing these house rules with players ahead of time, they assume anyone with a dice pool over 12, or a high Body and low Strength, is a munchkin. And thusly, terms like "twink" and "munchkin" get overused. But twinking does not take place in a vacuum!

A lot of gaming problems can arise from inexperienced GMs. They send in standard mooks in clustered together, with no tactics, and watch as a min-maxed character mows them down. Instead of telling the face "No, a negotiation test won't let you do that", they simply slap on a 12-dice penalty, and then watch as the 36-dice face rolls his now-24 dice and still gets umpteen successes to do something preposterous. They neglect to apply common combat or visibility modifiers, letting players unleash their full 18+ dice pool in situations where they should be rolling significantly less dice. They will stubbornly try to crack the troll tank's super-high damage soak, instead of using something like neurostun or a mana bolt. The "high dice pool" category of twinks is usually fine, if you apply the rules and setting of the game.

The remaining category of twinks are the ones who aren't content to merely pump up their dice pools. They are the ones who try to game the system, rather than play the game. I'm talking about things like "I'll rent mainframe time and use the team rules to make programs in no time at all, and sell them for millions" or "I have the spirit posses me with the service being for him to be 'me' for the day" or "I have the technomancer use a machine sprite to give the sammie 6 extra dice for his smartlink". But the GM can still deal with them, by simply saying NO, either to the "creative" rule interpretation, or to the character itself.
Remjin
I don't think I can add too much to this discussion as a lot of it seems to be covered... but to knock it down to more in the way of essentials and less about the terminology, I don't think a player is really doing anything wrong to be good at something, even if its astoundingly good at something, so long as they're building a character within the rules and not using a loophole or twisting a wording or anything that feels like "cheating."

However, part of "cheating" in a roleplaying game includes the idea that a character is nothing except whatever thing they might be good at. The many examples of the huge dice pool at a skill + inability to do anything else is cheating by simply not making a character, but rather a tool and an unsurvivable tool. Those types of things don't play well within the large scope of a game.

To use the example of the guy who just shot everything (btw, I haven't a clue how you get 30+ dice in the current edition, I'm curious to know how that happens...), that character and possibly the GM are not taking into account that a whole lot of people are going to be unhappy with that fellow, and if nothing else.. he has to sleep sometime, eat sometime, or trust someone sometime... and while the rest of the PCs may not be as uber as he is, they may start to really dislike him as well. Then there's the more complex problems that can occur from story and otherwise.

Anytime a RPG turns into a bad video game, you should probably just go play a video game. The whole thing about roleplaying games that's supposed to be the point, nowadays, is having a game in which so much more can happen, and that the world is not a platform from which you shoot things.

Characters who are awesome at something sacrifice somewhere, and there's a balance there if everyone chooses to see the game as a whole. And really, in the end, we're all friends at the table, aren't we? If a player is there and not contributing to the fun of the group, then why have them there? Heck, in the group I mainly play in, we have an unofficial rule/tradition: make way for everyone's "schtick." Player A wants to be a crazy gunslinger adept doing the whole grammiton cleric/Revy/John Woo thing. Everyone else stays away from dual pistols as a combat skill and keeps their skill paths to a different line. Its not to say someone coudn't do it, we just generally like to allow people to shine in their time. We don't generally have to check on characters as far as cheating goes. If you cheat, you betray the trust of the group and jeopardize your place at the table and the friendships you've just betrayed by trying to pull one over on everyone.

In the end, what is a twink? I don't really know the term all that well. I just know players who want to have fun and be my friend, and those that do not. The former stays, the latter goes.

Sorry if that came off high-handed or overly "feely," I just never understand it when people allow abusive players or are sensitive to someone being good at something. If it breaks the game, then its no fun, so why bother?
TKDNinjaInBlack
I'm pretty sure I said just shy of 30 dice. That was including edge, being an elf, lucky, exceptional attribue, smartgun, and just about anything else to give a bonus. It was a true powergaming masterpiece. Like I said though, it wasn't the character that was the problem, it was the player. He only had that one skill that was worth anything and because of that he used it for everything. Eventually he lost a charisma test against a whore who seduced him and gave him an awakened STD that killed his character.
Cain
QUOTE
Characters who are awesome at something sacrifice somewhere, and there's a balance there if everyone chooses to see the game as a whole.

That's not necessarily true. I've seen pornomancer builds that had a complete, if Spartan, skill set. They couldn't really run the matrix, for example, but they didn't have to; they weren't noticeably worse at it than any other non-decker. Their combat skills were small, but sufficient to keep mooks at bay. And you want it that way; if you had a character that excelled in multiple roles, the game would be no fun for anyone else.

The problem is when someone twinks their way into a character that has one solution for everything, and it works. For example, what happens if you combine a pornomancer-style build with Commanding Voice? Now, the uber social adept has a useful combat ability. He can simply command the opposition to surrender. Combat will become shoot, shoot, surrender, end.

QUOTE
Eventually he lost a charisma test against a whore who seduced him and gave him an awakened STD that killed his character.

rotfl.gif I'm going to have to remember that one.
Glyph
QUOTE (Cain @ Sep 13 2008, 10:48 AM) *
The problem is when someone twinks their way into a character that has one solution for everything, and it works.

And that sounds like what the real problem with TKDNinjaInBlack's gunslinger example was. Not the 20+ dice, but the way the character took over everyone else's roles (shooting doors open, shooting drones, shooting spirits, threatening contacts). Part of the problem was the player being a selfish drama queen, but part of the problem was also an inexperienced GM.

A more experienced GM would have mooks that were more numerous and spread out, giving everyone something to shoot at in combat. There would be problems that only sneaking, electronics skill, rigging, or magery could handle, or at least ones where gunplay would be a far less optimal solution. And someone threatening a runner's lifeblood, their contacts, would quickly find himself in a very bad place. Using a gun to solve everything shouldn't work.
Cain
QUOTE (Glyph @ Sep 13 2008, 01:20 PM) *
And that sounds like what the real problem with TKDNinjaInBlack's gunslinger example was. Not the 20+ dice, but the way the character took over everyone else's roles (shooting doors open, shooting drones, shooting spirits, threatening contacts). Part of the problem was the player being a selfish drama queen, but part of the problem was also an inexperienced GM.

A more experienced GM would have mooks that were more numerous and spread out, giving everyone something to shoot at in combat. There would be problems that only sneaking, electronics skill, rigging, or magery could handle, or at least ones where gunplay would be a far less optimal solution. And someone threatening a runner's lifeblood, their contacts, would quickly find himself in a very bad place. Using a gun to solve everything shouldn't work.

I don't think it was entirely the GM's fault. It sounds like this guy deliberately tried to hog the spotlight for himself, by turning every problem into something his guns could solve. I think if the GM had presented a more varied challenge, the game hog would have found a way to take over those scenes as well. He'd have to present a game where combat was not a solution, period. And that's technically unfair to the combat characters who aren't disrupting the game.
Remjin
QUOTE (Glyph @ Sep 13 2008, 02:20 PM) *
Using a gun to solve everything shouldn't work.


Heck, it should be the instigator in similar solutions when dealing with that guy. e.g. At the stuffer shack, "Hey, why's that psycho here?! Kill him before he shoots the place up!" etc. Otherwise, just totally agree with ya. =)
Glyph
QUOTE (Cain @ Sep 13 2008, 01:55 PM) *
I don't think it was entirely the GM's fault. It sounds like this guy deliberately tried to hog the spotlight for himself, by turning every problem into something his guns could solve. I think if the GM had presented a more varied challenge, the game hog would have found a way to take over those scenes as well. He'd have to present a game where combat was not a solution, period. And that's technically unfair to the combat characters who aren't disrupting the game.

Well, I did say part of the problem was the player being a selfish drama queen. But the way the GM was described in the example, it sounded like he was a bit flustered and at a loss about what to do. And threatening contacts? That should usually have serious repercussions. It might be appropriate for some of the slimier contacts, such as snitches, but threatening a fixer should get the runner blacklisted by not only that fixer, but by similar contacts who hear about the incident, and the runner should take a hit in notoriety.
TKDNinjaInBlack
QUOTE (Cain @ Sep 13 2008, 02:55 PM) *
I don't think it was entirely the GM's fault. It sounds like this guy deliberately tried to hog the spotlight for himself, by turning every problem into something his guns could solve. I think if the GM had presented a more varied challenge, the game hog would have found a way to take over those scenes as well. He'd have to present a game where combat was not a solution, period. And that's technically unfair to the combat characters who aren't disrupting the game.


The GM did do this and the player did find ways to shoot his gun. However, both of you are right because the GM was inexperienced with the world of Shadowrun at the time and didn't know how to appropriately handle this character. We had almost no recourse from lonestar, bounty hunters, or loss of contacts. It was bad on both sides, but mostly because of ignorance. Hell, that shooter was walking through downtown A areas with full body armor on! Both parties know the world now, have gotten much better to RP with. The combat monster doesn't like to game hog that much anymore, and the GM knows the appropriate response for certain actions.
ElFenrir
It's funny with powergaming-I do like to play a character that's damn good at whatever they do. But there were a couple times where I managed to make such a beast(they looked great on paper-but when they got in game they were even MORE insane), that I actually got...bored. I mean, I wasn't really having fun with the superpower after awhile. I think those real crazy powergamed characters are kind of fun in a one-shot or weekend campaign, but I couldn't play one long-term. For that, I like a character that IS really good at a couple things and has a smattering of other things they can branch out on.

Also, some characters sometimes LOOK more...sane than they actually turn out-and others look a lot worse than they are. For example, in Karmagen, you usually end up with characters with a rather nice laundry list of skills; looking at the sheet you'd think they'd be able to do anything. But when you look again, what they have is a few high ones, and a whole lot of 2-3 skills, which their DPs end up around 5-8 for(depending on linked attributes.) Which, in the end, isn't that bad at all. I know the first few characters I made in karmagen I was like ''they have HOW many skills?'' But it wasn't so bad looking twice.

Likewise, I've seen, again, some harmless looking characters end up pure insanity somehow.

As for inexperienced GMs...Ive been there, I think a lot of us have been there. I can think back to plenty of my first games I ran that would have turned out a LOT differently had I knew the ins and outs more. But that's just something one learns in time.

Falconer
I think the problem w/ the truly top of their trade chars Elfenrir is they have nowhere to go. They're at the pinnacle they can only do that... and there's very little they can do to get better at it.

Their only choice is to branch out... and when you have one really really good expensive hammer which works well... it's tough to use the other newer hammers which don't quite do the job... so you end up getting bored w/ one trick pony and if you stick w/ it long enough you end up with a 2 trick pony where again it takes forever to get a usable 3rd trick.

I have few problems w/ the long term munchkin... yes he has a build and a plan... but I've rarely seen people stick exactly to the plan paying a little bit here and there for in game oppurtunities and necessities. At least they're slowly growing into their potential and have some development in game.
Cain
QUOTE (Glyph @ Sep 13 2008, 02:08 PM) *
Well, I did say part of the problem was the player being a selfish drama queen. But the way the GM was described in the example, it sounded like he was a bit flustered and at a loss about what to do. And threatening contacts? That should usually have serious repercussions. It might be appropriate for some of the slimier contacts, such as snitches, but threatening a fixer should get the runner blacklisted by not only that fixer, but by similar contacts who hear about the incident, and the runner should take a hit in notoriety.

Well, while you're right as far as it goes, I wouldn't call the character a Drama Queen. I coined the term myself, and it's got a very specific definition. A Drama Queen is the kind of player who wants to be on top of the social heap, both in and out of game, and is willing to do almost anything to get there. Whatever his problems were, that wasn't it.

I might be convinced that we had a classic combat munchkin. He had a big hammer, and he tried to turn everything into nails. But a munchkin usually means a win-or-lose mentality, which this guy doesn't seem to have. Instead, we have a min/maxer who's also a game hog: he tries to force his character into the limelight in every situation. So, I'd feel most comfortable calling him a Problem Player, type: Game Hog.
Sir_Psycho
The problem I find with twinks is that if one does it, everyone else on the table has to do it. I'm GM'ing a bunch of Shadowrun virgins. Some have a bit of background in that other game, but most of them are just computer game nerds. I've been walking them all through the process of character creation, and I mentioned to one guy that he could get a lot more value for his sam by soft-maxing his agility and buying two levels of muscle toner, as it cost less and gave him a better Agility in the end.

The problem was that it started to get out of control, I started to worry a little, because the seed of minmaxing that I had planted started to spread. However, the purist roleplayers weren't that interested, and I could see their characters being overshadowed by the other characters' skillsets, so I had to give them a little push into balancing up with the other characters. I'll probably just take/give toys to/from the players to balance them all out. But when you have characters of differing power-levels, it can be a problem when statting up your opposition.
toturi
QUOTE (Sir_Psycho @ Sep 14 2008, 01:25 PM) *
However, the purist roleplayers weren't that interested, and I could see their characters being overshadowed by the other characters' skillsets, so I had to give them a little push into balancing up with the other characters.

Tell them straight that their characters will be likely overshadowed by the other characters. If they are indeed purist roleplayers, then they will have to be content to be playing the role of the second fiddle to the characters who are better. Afterall, they are roleplayers, right?
Stahlseele
tell them that it's bad roleplaying for the character not wanting to be the best he can possibly be in whatever he wants to do, see if that rings any bells O.o
masterofm
I think the idea of twinking and being a munchkin is how far you take the rules and make them your bitch. For instance mages that take evoking and get Guardian spirits. They make the guardian spirit a great form and it gets the power endowment. They then use the power endowment to give the PC endowment... now your player has endowment. The player gives a vampire endowment so the vampire can endow the mage so the PC can now suck essence and magic from other people and keep those stats forever. That is munchkin. Bloodzilla is munchkin. Taking the game and bending it sideways to the point where you are basically doing something the game didn't intend because of some crazy loophole so that you not only push the "I win" button, but you push it so hard that you actually break the game is munchkin. Yeah sure the rules allow for your build, but you have now made your character so uber no one can catch up. I don't think the pornomancer is a munchkin to be honest as they just can't bring the pain the way magic can be totally ass backwards broken in this game. The Pornomancer just gets a crap load of dice for one very specific thing, bloodzilla or the endowment mage get ultimate victory in a can. The pornomancer also looses quite a lot of dice if they can't meet the person in the flesh. I would put the pornomancer in the twinking to the extreme catagory, but they are not munchkins.

Twinking is taking a rule set and using it to your advantage. A logic based mage taking cerebral enhancers r3, a power focus, ect. so that you have "tweaked" your character so that it is the ideal build is twinking. Twinked characters might even outshine other character's specialties if they did not build an optimum character. For instance my somewhat logic based adept who actually specializes in gunnery-balistics (<-- twink) threw more dice in pretty much every single situation against the B&E/face mundane... (save the face part) which my character edged he had more then 6 dice. The mage with assence specialties "auras" is twinky, the person who rolls up a gunnery character with an agility of 1 and uses the guns response 6 chip when he/she ever takes a shot is twinky. Will also probably try an infiltrate a facility in some kind of armored cacoon with a gun on it.

I really think the difference is that munchkins break games, twinkers make optimized characters and can be somewhat annoying, but they don't just win at every single thing they want to do. That is my thoughts on twink vs. munchkins.
Voran
I think the good Sir Psycho has a good point. Min/Maxing and optimizing has a side effect of ...well not really forcing, more like 'strongly encouraging' the rest of the player group to adopt min/maxing habits as well. Its not so much that the players are competitive against each other, but I think its fair to say that when you're in a group, you generally don't want to feel like you're dead weight.

I've seen this get a little gnarly at times, usually triggered by the death of one player char, and its replacement within the same group by the player's new and improved tweaked character, who suddenly appears more capable than the existing members, largely because its been built on OOC knowledge of how the campaign or style of gm-ing works. If I've played with a particular GM for an extended period of time, I'll get to know his/her likes/dislikes, types of games and encounters and storylines that they'll tend to use well, etc. So it becomes a little easier to make a new char to fit more or less seamlessly into the ongoing campaign, should my original character kick-it.

But if I bring in a flashy new character, there's a chance it'll screw over the existing balance of the group and cause others to want to change too.
hyzmarca
Technically, Twink is a term that refers to a cute young (usually blond and well-tanned, but not necessarily so) homosexual bottom, being derived from the snack food because such individuals have a golden exterior and a cream-filled interior.

In RPGs, it generally refers to an inexperienced player or PC who mooches off of and/or becomes the bitch of an experienced player or PC, obtaining powerful equipment that would not ordinarily be available to the character through this relationship. This isn't particularly gamebreaking, but it is damned creepy.



As for min/maxing, the only real issue is the hammer-nail problem. If you have a full team, say a Face, a Hannibal, a B.A. and a Murdock, it isn't any problem. Every team member does his own thing and they all compliment each other. But if you have Murdock alone trying to rescue a bunch of nuns from Panamanian rebels, you just end up with a bunch of dead nuns and probably a dead Murdock, unless you let him install weapons on his helicopter, in which case the solution to every thing will be death from above.

The hammer-nail problem is one for the GM. If as a GM you let the PC hammer every problem into submission then the game will get boring. If you don't then the PC will soon get dead. The best way to head it off is to ensure that the team is balanced and complimentary and disallow game-ruining builds in orde rto protect this balance.

ElFenrir
Good point about the A-Team analogy. Indeed, if there is one of each, they can go to town on whatever they are good at.

I actually LIKE to see when a team crosses over, though-but there's a difference between crossing over and taking over. My buddy has a tech character who has the entire Mechanics Group, a 6 Logic, 4 Electronics Group, and some other odds and ends. His physical attributes aren't bad either(4s and 3s), but he doesn't have so many skills in the combat(I think Clubs 2, Pistols 1 or something). My fellow has solid combat skills(great unarmed, good with Pistols and Automatics, with specialities), and also loves tech-he's only got Industrial Mechanic of 4, Automotive of 3, and Electronics Group 1, along with a sprinkling of other stuff(Armorer 2, for instance). His 4 logic makes him a really good tech(he has 1 die added to each Mechanic, but not electronics or armorer.) Both of them have good Charisma scores(5s), my friends guy is a little bit higher on the social skills(I think in the 3-4 range of all of them) my fellow runs 2+2/3+2 for Etiquette, Intimidation, Negotiations, and I think I did put something in Con as well.

What we have here, IMO, are character who aren't stepping on each others toes, but helping each other. My fellow actually thinks of himself as a tech at heart, but just has a good balance of combat and athletics skills to see him through if things get down and dirty, that he also enjoys((training, athletics) on his spare time besides tinkering. He still has a lot of room to grow in the tech-area though; having gotten out of college 2 or so years before. My friends fellow is around 40 years old, so he's done the tech thing for awhile, but has enough combat to hold his own if something happens(hell, he can throw with a smartlink, what, 8-9 dice when shooting, and 7 or so with clubs). Both of them can hold their own in a social situation, my friend's fellow just a BIT more(particularly in the area of Con), but both are near equal here. His fellow also has more Stealth skills(disguise, Shadowing, infiltration, and the Blandness quality), my fellow just as Infiltration/Urban...and is that changeling. His method is more ''talk his way in, Con a guy to turn around, smack in back of head with wrench, and proceed to sabotage equipment.'' He also has Demolitions. My fellow is better at the ''danger runs''...sort of like the Combat Hacker vs. Nerd Hacker archetypes. The latter might be stronger overall with the hacking, but the former is better at the runs that involve higher-security on-site access that are reported to have heavier opposition, and sending one disguised man in might be a BIT too dangerous.

IMO, this is an example of two characters who have a good balance of abilities between them...but if a GM decides to make an ''all combat campaign'' or an ''all tech campaign''....one is going to end out outshining the other. In a nice and balanced campaign-they each will have their chances to shine, to do their thing, and to help each other out as well.

Both of us(me and my friend), made our characters with some minmaxing in mind. We took advantage of our character's strengths and tried to cover up some of the weaknesses, as well. They aren't godlike characters or anything, but they are damned good at what they do-while, in our opinions, still making sense with the characters, and we wanted them that way.
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