It's not about game physics, or BP limits. It's about the power level of the campaign. I don't care how legal that pornomancer is, or that pistol adept, or the sniper build with spells, sprites and spirit possession - if it does disrupt the game, then it's not allowed. I really do not need the grief that comes from trying to integrate a character with double the relevant DPs of the other characters.

In my campaign, we have caps for DP. It doesn't matter how you get your DPs, what matters is what DPs you have - both for individual skills, and in total. And that amount needs to be balanced with the rest of the characters - and with regards to actual game play, not theoretical situations.

Incidentally, it also means that players can pick advantages and disadvantages, skills, powers, spells and gear, everything, for roleplay reasons, without any thought to how effective and efficient any choice is.

That can be damned hard to manage. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm of your idea in main part, although we've never yet had to cap DPs, but I can see it as a workable limitation

...IF...

(and if I could make that if bigger I would)

...the Participants are mature enough to do it and not try to look for loop holes in it.

of course if they ARE mature enough, it's already a non-point anyway.


Isshia

Well, even if there were loopholes, they'd be covered once detected - that's why I said "actual game play". I know some are of the opinion that once the GM allows something, it's set in stone, no matter what he/she missed, but I don't share this. I have no problem adjusting or banning anything once it becomes a problem.

Although I don't play with people who'd try to slip something by the GM anyway.

If your Players don't whine like the Bordeaux to begin with, how does it ever become an issue to begin with? You simply sit down with them, see what's what, lay it out and go on. Why with mature Players does there ever have to be a "ruling" in the first place?


Isshia

It's not as much a "ruling" as a consensus between all players. Not everyone always agrees on what's balanced, so the GM has the last word.

If you have a group of players where everyone single one of the honestly follows such guidelines, then you and you're players must be freak people from mars.

Well, Fuchs descriptions of his games are so far removed from SR as it gets sometimes, so maybe his players are the real deal. But even if they are, I'd assume they are jerks about it and display a "holier than though" attitude towards more regular gamers. I need to think so, or my reality might implode, no offense meant... well, maybe a little.

I like the balance between RAW and GM approval SR needs to work without beeing horribly broken. Forces GMs to actually spend some time to learn what kind of character their players have, not only think of them as Street Samurai v3.1 etc. I have broken my fair share of games, so I should now what I'm talking about here. I do not like to enforce some arbitrary DP caps, though. If a character get's a high DP, good for him, as long as he did not achieve this by some silly method that works RAW but was never really intended.

I would think that there should be a set of Guidelines that every GM gives to his/her players. This covers most of the questions that a player could ask, and should have a line stating the following:

Guidelines will never be complete, much easier to simply discuss the campaign, and create a character, together with the whole group. Everyone knows then what's expected, and what's intended, and can veto stuff they have problems with (which includes stats as well as flavor).

I wouldn't run a game where the Players weren't adult enough to police themselves. I've run literally some thousands of sessions in almost a dozen different genres since 76 and since about 79 haven't had the problems that so many DO complain about so often on internet forums. I think there's a good reason for it too.

Consensus rules the scene with us as well, except the GMs voice is no greater or more important than that of any Player and the consensus is truly a group consensus with none the lesser nor the greater. SR (at least 3 and earlier does) works fine without any sort of tyranny in how the game will be played. In my experience the GM who doesn't set himself above his Players, even if his skills are not great, quickly gains their trust and support and from that point forward the entire idea of enforced rulings not arrived at by TOTAL consensus becomes anathema. When you add creativity to the mix you get waiting lists for people to get in to your games.


Isshia

Whenever you have a waiting list, you also have a lot of power as a GM. People are more willing to agree to something the GM proposes if they know that they can be replaced anytime.

I agree with both GM-set power level for campaigns, and creating characters together to avoid one team member being overshadowed in his main role by another character. Not sure I agree DP limits are always the way to go - I have no problem with reasonable limits, but when you limit them too much, you start penalizing specialists while not affecting generalists.

I don't know what your DP limits are, but I am not pleased by that concept. All you need to do as a GM is approach your players and kindly ask them to be considerate of the game. If you've chosen the correct players, that'll be no problem. If not, there's more where they came from.

For example, in the game I run I have an ex-special forces combat sniper. His DP isn't anything to sneeze at, but it's no pornomancer/autokiller (the DP thread), sitting at just around 30-ish. He easily is able to combat the goons I've been placing them against, and so far he's actually saved the President of the UCAS' life with a super-lucky 18 success shot on a drone that was on a collision course.

I guess my point is that high DPs are not the issue; agreeing with a few earlier posters, you have to make sure your group is mature, and can watch themselves.

Well, that's why I said there's a DP limit on individual skill(set)s, and a total DP limit (well, rough limit). We basically look at the whole character, not at a few benchmarks. And players are expected to state when they consider a build unfitting - not just as "That's too powerful" way, but also as "That's too weak, we'd not work with such a character", or as "That background would not work with the rest of the team".

Rather than limit DPs, we just sorta put the old fashioned, ''don't be an ass'' rule out. Now, I had mentioned before, though-the people I play with mainly are the people whom I've played with for years and years-I'd say about 14-15 years so far. While we do have our own differing opinions, many of us have shared houserules before when it was our turn to GM(someone will think of one, and many times the rest of the crew like it.) In all of our time, we've never had to cap DPs or anything, and no one got terribly overshadowed. Now, there were a few times where some characters were ''slow starters'', but that was more learning the rules about their character type and getting into it than a power imbalance.

Now, we do often play a bit higher-end games; but not astronomical. We have a few easy house rules(like the no availability limit at Chargen, and other things that actually open up options for the characters-we want you to be able to play the character you really, really want.) I dunno what power level you'd call us, but it's more of a ''pro that's not a prime runner.'' Our high end DPs average 17-20, our middle 10-12, our low 6-8. Typically characters only have 1-2 skills in the high end; most fall in the middle. Of course, a couple can be given our taken-now and then someone's high end will creep to 22 and low end around 4. [Not every game is like this, sometimes they average lower. Oddly enough, this doesn't take any GM ruling, what I personally do is take a look at the folks the characters made, and see where they fall-we kind of let each other know what power level we are looking to play.) In the odd event that 3 folks make our normal type of characters(17-20 high end DP), and one is lower, we make sure that they know, and if they still want to go with it and they don't care, it's cool with us; otherwise they readjust. Again, it's choice.]

This works great for us, we always have fun, and to us, roleplaying is a way to sit around the table, have a rockin' good time with friends, play fun characters and have some laugh-out-loud moments at our antics, and emotional moments when the roleplaying gets deeper. I suppose you might say we are more of the ''beer 'n pretzles'' variety, and fun takes the front seat to anything.

But if DP capping makes your games more fun, hey, whatever works. I guess it's just hard for me to understand because we never *had* to do this. None of us are trying to break or win the game; we just want our folks to be good at what we want them to be, in the power level of our games.

High DP are an issue. If the game is balanced with the understanding that 15 DP are "top of the world", a 30 DP character is breaking the game. Not that much by rolling 30 dice, but by changing the game universe. Of course, a mature player wouldn't build a charater with 30 dice for firearm tests in a campaign where 15 dice are considered the human max, right?

The root of the problem with character "superstars" comes from an oppositional feeling between the PC and the GM. I've had my share of players the pull out builds like this. When it got right down to it, all of them (in my experience) were creating the build so that they could "win" the game. They want to ensure that they were miles ahead of any opposition the GM could send at them. This is the time for that "GM to player" talk. In my sessions I'm very up front about how I like to run my games. In my sessions I'm more about the "role" play than the "roll" play. I'm about telling a story, and a good story has an element of risk for the protagonist(s). If they want to play in my games, then the need to expose their character to risk when playing the game. If they want to be invincible and sweep aside everything, then they can go do that somewhere else. If nothing seems to get through then I suggest they go play a tabletop miniatures war game where they are encouraged to mini-max their build so they can defeat someone else. That sort of mentality has no place in RPGs.

Maybe 15 dice is only the top of the world that the Corps let us know about...

In that case, don't let any humans get stats over 6, because 6 is the maximum for humans.

Shadowrunners are the exception to the rule, and the opposition should be as tough. Most of the time. Every now and then, spruce up a game with a 'run about like helping find someone on an Amber Alert or something.

That's what this is about. By stating "A DP of 16 is the best of the best", it gives a baseline people can orient their characters at (like the skill rating examples given in the BBB, but with regards to the actual tests, not the base skill), and they know the GM keeps that in mind when building NPCs.

See I agree with this. Let the players limit their characters. Just because that sniper in my game has 30-ish dice to shoot his rifle doesn't mean he can take a hit. It also doesn't mean he can talk his way out of a paper bag, or evade police. Now he's not inept at such things, but he's got enough life to him to make him a believeable charater and a fun member of the run.

For example, he has a gambling addiction and a synthahol addiction. They had to hole up with some Trogg members in an abandoned shooting range after a run for a few weeks, and day 1 he bet an ork that he could shoot better than him. The ork pulled off and blasted a target with his Ruger Superwarhawk, and then the player calmly pulled his rifle from his specially-made briefcase and walked twice the distance. The ork was like "Well I didn't use a sight!", so the player goes "Fair 'nuff", removes the sight, and super-pwns the ork anyways. He was pretty much accepted as an honerary Trogg by the rest of the gang by showing up their mini-leader-bigmouth stereotype, and even the ork he smeared couldn't really hold it against him.

It's not the size of the dicepool that counts; it's how you roll them.

I see it more as "I want to be better than the rest of the players". And that kind of thinking I can do without. If a DP of 17 is good enough for the sam, then it's good enough for the adept too.

Remember, Shadowrun is a game that has three "planes" to it: physical, magical, and matrix. Characters with 30+ DP are probably sacrificing every other area in order to be good in their one specialty. Simply challenge the player with one of the other areas. If they kick butt shooting things, then send a Spirit after them or have a Hacker shut down all that pretty gear they're using to get a bunch of those DP bonuses.

It also depends on what kind of runs (their "feel") that you are playing. Corporate Johnsons want a level of professionalism out of their runners, and if the team ends up blasting their way in and out of something every time they're hired they may find themselves running low on work.

The problem is with 15 being the ''best in the entire world'', this is from a totally human standpoint, as in, no augmentations. A human with Agility 5(7), Pistols(Semi-Auto) 5(7), with a Reflex Recorder(+1) and a Smartlink(+2) is already up to 17 dice. This is not, IMO, a broken build. In fact, there are probably several shadowrunners that have this. Hell, the Street Samurai sample character, whom are known for being rather underpowered in general, has an Agility 5(7). Likewise, an Adept can get high die pools just from powers-and this isn't even minmaxing/twinking them out-an adept gunbunny with Pistols 5(+2), Improved Pistols +2, Agility 6 and a smartlink is at 17 dice, as well.

I guess I'm confused, because I suppose you can play the game where no character has a natural stat higher than 4 or a skill higher than 4, and if you and your players have fun with that, it's cool; but I guess we always looked at it as runners being a bit better than the typical SWAT team member. What about that ex-Special Forces Sniper? A skill of Longarms(Rifles) 5(+2) is, even by the book, very reasonable for a Special Forces sniper(it even listed 5 as being around that, also like a military combat pilot with combat experience for vehicles, etc.) It's very easy for that fellow to-even believably-reach around 17 dice. Hell, you can have a Troll Ganger, Nail-Bat Thompson, who has used a bat as his weapon of choice from the time he was 13 on the streets to his 24 years now, 11 years of day-in, day-out bat usage might well see him at a Clubs(bats) 5(+2), add in an Agility 4(6) with some cheap muscle replacement, 1 reach for a club, a custom bat(by this time, a personalized bat is probably his calling card), and his own one reach? Bingo, 16 dice. And this is a ganger.

I guess I wonder where the die pools start to get ''stupid'' for most folks? For us, it's usually around the mid 20s range(given the level of campaigns we play-if we played a 1200 karma campaign, i'd expect to see this.) At that point, it takes quite a bit of twinkage that probably happens at the cost of character background. But a 15 DP is easy to hit without going overboard. Hell, Pistols/Spec 4+2, Agility 4(6) and a smartlink grants 14 right there, and this person isn't superpowered at all. Add in a reflex recorder for 15. This is far from the top of the world. You can probably find any given SWAT team member with these skills(it actually mentions 4 in a skill is around a SWAT level.) A reflex recorder has a low availability and is 10k nuyen; a SWAT fellow driven to the shadows might well pick one up, and a couple levels of muscle toner or replacement are likewise not too out there, it's not like he's trying to scrounge up Move-By-Wire Beta. Now, granted, the average Swat fellow might not have the Replacement, so knock two off of that-still, when the typical Swat dude is throwing 12 dice, and the top of the world is 15...something sort of seems off about that.

Now, for a non-cybered, non-magical, totally mundane person? Oh, 15 dice is freaking amazing. But even light, non-twinky, fairly easy to come by ware can pile on extra dice.

Then again, I've seen the discussion about ''what's the correct die pool?'' My answer is ''whatever works best for the table and adds the most fun''.

The point of this system is to balance characters directly, instead of letting them minmax within a given limit (karma, BP, availability). That way, roleplaying choices become more open, and minmaxing and the system mastery that goes with it takes a backseat.

"I trained extensively in Tibet for 14 years, sleeping only when my body couldn't hold out any longer, removed from society to insure the distractions of the world would not interfere. My body is the pinnacle of personal training; a perfect synergy of body, soul, and mind."

"Me? I just bought this arm a week ago, and these eyes I got at noon... I mean they cost a little but I had the cash from my old dayjob. Got some nice residual benifits from them too; dental, eye, hospital care. Ares really looks after their retirees, you know."

...You see?

The actual values chosen can vary, it's main point is to not look at DP/karma used, but at actual numbers in play to judge game balance.

Yeah. And that's what I want out of a game - to have both the "trained my body to perfection, then maxed my skills" as well as the "cybered up" be equally valid, and not just the "maxed my stats, maxed skills, then added 'ware" build, or the "maxed my stats, maxed skills, picked adept powers, then added 'ware" build.

The idea is to allow different builds to be equally valid, so we don't get the same character builds.

I don't support dp caps in general because that is basically a nerf for edge. Our current game has dps of 12-15 for their specialty (without equipment) and with equipment and edge, that can easily move to 20+. We still are challenged by the sample NPCs out of the friends and foes section of the BBB. A game should retain some internal balance, though. The characters should be relying upon eachother to make it through scrapes that genuinely threaten their well being. It should not be the one man show the whole time. But as said, there are three worlds, and each specialist in those arenas should get a little time in the spotlight. I find many times that Sams feel the most left out because everyone enters into combat. However, our current sams have busted out some tricks that were freaking awesome and earned them the spotlight.

Well, I guess I consider our game a bit too laid back to expect people to bust out tricks to get the spotlight.

Have people forgotten that there is a cap on natural skill ratings from character creation in the RAW?

Now, this is a limit on the natural rating of the skill, but remember that equipment that increases the skill rating can only improve it by a maximum of 50%, and that applies to attributes as well. Equipment/powers that state they give a bonus are not limited (IMO, there are too many things that give a "bonus," particularly in the Social Skill arena).

I think Fuchs problem is a valid one. The system starts to break down once you get into high dicepools. If you're rolling 18+ dice, you're going to come out on top a disproportionate amount of the time. You start to be able to easily buy net hits (if GM allows, which I prefer not to).

The problem is scaling the difficulty. If you decide to adjust thresholds and modifiers for these high DP characters, then you ruin the value of that characters large dice. If you decide to adjust the opposition, and have your mooks throwing 15+ dice, it's an arms race that ends up in TPK. Firearms is hardly the worst example, as you can just decide that security guards wear security armour at all times, but it become more of a difficulty in other areas.

For example, I like to use the Logic + Cracking/Computer (Capped by program hits), which while feeling more natural and cohesive with the system's intent, a Logic based hacker can walk all over the systems and IC, given that their dice pools are limited to around 12, the Logic based hacker throwing 20+ dice is going to destroy them almost every time. And once again, it becomes an arms race that ruins immersion in the world. It ruins the immersion when the toaster is running 6 in all ratings and IC just to keep up.

*EDIT* Internet screw up. Post below. :p

There are plenty of other ways to challenge PC's in Shadowrun besides a "stand up fight." That smacks of "hack and slash" game thinking. Security professionals are not dumb, they know they are out-done by intruding runners in a stand-up fight, so they won't stand there to be part of it. They will use cover, numbers, knowledge of terrain, and tactics (like ambushes) to even the playing field. Drones are also incredibly efficient as a defense as they're (relatively) cheap to produce, require no training, never take breaks, and can mount heavy weaponry quite proficiently.

Buildings can have gas traps, automated gun turrets, monofilament tripwires, and a contracted Security Mage that does nothing but throw spirits at intruders. Generally, a buildings "permanent" Security forces will be fairly benign, but they will almost always be able to call in a High Threat Response team in order to back them up. I have no problem designing HTR's to have equipment and skills coming very close to what the PC's can field, along with some heavier equipment that 'runners should have difficulty acquiring.

I've seen a few instances myself(and heard of many more-even around here) of the game breaking down at low die pools as well, however. If you're in a situation, where, say, the PCs and the opposition are both throwing around 6-8 dice for things...in a combat situation, this can take *forever*, and I'm not kidding. Both sides throwing, say, 8 dice(after smartlinks) for Pistols. A basic combat situation. Both sides have armor jackets(8/6), and a Body of 4. 8 dice averages...what was it about, 3 successes? Figure average defense of each side is 6 dice(before the armor, even). They can probably cut out one of these, maybe even 2-giving the attacker 1 or 2 successes. With 12 soak dice, they can likely soak up a handful of that stun(and it is stun, since the power of a HP isn't enough to cut the 8 armor-4 successes average, let's say, on 12 dice, I think that's it, anyway, and I forget the exact math)-and of course, this isn't even taking into effect other modifiers that could cut down pools even more.

So, on average, each person that pops a shot will maybe end up taking off 2 stun boxes on someone. I suppose if you like long, drawn-out gun battles(assume 5 runners and 6 opposition), this can work, but cap the pools too low and the game breaks down in other ways. Of course, with the hit box of a 5 or a 6, two people can be Facing each other all day and possibly not get enough successes to make the other budge.

Now, I can see what Fuchs is talking about in a sense of ''see what the overall die pools look like as a whole.'' This IS a pretty cool way of doing it. One high die pool does not a broken character make, IMO.

Recently, I was toying around with things, and I decided to make a Bear Shifter Mystic Adept. He's 3/3, even divided between the two. I wanted to give him one good, solid skill; since he could change to a bear(well, bear changing to elf), I gave him a solid Unarmed skill(yeah, i likes my melee), and as good as Agility as I could(we charge .5/per level of increase). With his Reach(human with kick, or bear), he throws 15 dice unarmed, which is good. It's his big combat skill, so i wanted to make sure he was good at it.

His other die pools, however, are surprisngly on the lower side. Since 3 points are on his Magic side, he only throws 6 dice to spellcast(he casts more defensive or healing spells), or summon, or 7 dice for Counterspelling/Banishing. He has a throwing skill which he can toss 11 for in his specialty with knives, and did learn to use a gun, throwing 11 dice with a smartlinked revolver. With the exception of strength-based athletics(base 11+3, so that's pretty high), his other skills range from 4 to 8, with 6-7 being the bulk of his die pools. Now, would a character like this be reasonable for one of your campaigns?(well, forget the shapeshifter part, but the die pool part.) He does have a couple of higher skills at 14-15, but the vast majority are in the 6-8 range.

Is this what you mean by ''overall balance?'' Like, someone with one big skill at 16 or so, but a bunch of others at around 7-9, is fairly balanced compared to the person who runs a constant 10-12?

It's one example. The exact balance varies a lot, since it depends on the actual campaign and other PCs. For example, our current game is set in Miami, and heavy armor is rather uncommon (can't swim that well in it, and the heat makes you stick out), so weapons are more effective. In actual game, situations where the PCs end up in a fight without armor are rather common, so mystic armor is worth more than in a game where you usually wear an armor jacket in all but a few fights. Same for some flaws - sinceflaws are not needed to get more points - you are not limited in BP anyway - only the flaws people actually want to see in effect are chosen, there is no point in picking a flaw that will never come up.
Should we start another campaign, mystc armor may end up underpowered, and other skills or powers may end up more powerful. And it could very well be that we decide to say play "James Bond 2070", and set the dice limit at 25 - all that matters is that everyone is on the same page concerning the end result.

What I am advocating is an alternate way to balance the game by not focusing on the BP/Karma/Availability limits, but solely at the end result. It allows more flexibility in some ways since PCs have a lot more options. A number of expensive and high-availability gear becomes available, for example, since the players know that only the end result matters, not what availability that cool piece of 'ware they want has - or how many BPs they spend.
It's basically "Make your character, take no heed of any limits, other than what your fellow players' characters represent."

Now, you see,wording it like that, and it takes on a different light. From the first page, I kept getting that it was a case of ''typical chargen/limits/etc, but no one can have more than 12 in a die pool and people with higher than 4s in something shouldn't exist.'' That sounded a bit...limiting to me, but gods know I've read things wrong before.

But the idea of not having BP/Karma/etc, and everyone taking what they want within the bounds of their character and the campaign sounds a hell of a lot more open. Saying ''No Die pool higher than 16, try to keep the 15-16 DPs-if you go that high-to no more than 3 skills, it doesn't matter if you do this with high Attributes and lower Skills, higher Skills and lower Attributes, or even combos thereof. No gear availability limit, but try to stay in your character background, and make sure that you're all roughly on equal ground'' sounds a lot better than ''you're never allowed to have a skill or attribute higher than a natural 4, just because Veterans have that and you guys are anything but.'' Again, reading wrong on my point, and seeing it more spelled out like that sounds very cool. I always said I wanted to try a game where you weren't limited on BP/gear/karma/etc, but just take what honestly fits you character. Hell, I have a feeling that while I'm sure you'd see a couple of healthy die pools, you'd see a hell of a lot more balanced characters than under some current limitations.

You see a lot less allergies/addictions, and the other standard BP boosters.

Its a nice idea but not the game I prefer to play. I like the tactical element of investing karma and only buy the things you think you'll need. And I like to be honored with karma. Background doesnt matter when it is time for a shootout or a magical duel. If I wanted story I'd use one of the more story based rpgs I own.

Amen to that omae, I've got such a high demand on my games right now that I can't help but wonder if in the back of the players' minds there is some understanding that they can be replaced if they fuck up.

This is just me... but in some cases it's not just the dicepool... but the player.

You can hand some players gimpy the torch bearer and they'll find a way to put the troll to shame.

In other cases, we had one notable pornomancer which the group was debating drugging and giving cat girl mods and pimping her out as she was completely ineffective as a face despite her dice pools.


But all things equal... especially if I don't know what to expect... I like to have a guideline from the GM about how much dicepool are they expecting out of their players out of chargen (also so they know what's appropriate dicepools for their NPCs). After chargen, that can be a bit harder to control as they start spending karma, but chargen itself it's nice to know.

Its just about eyeballing people's characters and assuring yourself as a GM that:

A) They have all the bases covered that you need covered to run the game you want to run

B) That all the team members have a role and will get an approximately equal share of spotlight time

C) All the characters are roughly on the same page power wise

You can do that with dice pool caps and you can do that by making funny hats and giving them out, it doesn't matter what you actually do, but every game with have that self moderating influence built in.

Ideally you'd set expectations before, during and after character generation, guiding everyone into the right character types and genres.

A change I'd make for my next game is 'negative qualities are worth no points, you get 35 free points and I encourage you too take some negative qualities if you want - and feel free to write down the size of the penalties if they are too extreme'

That's cool, as long as you let people know that up front. Because a DP of over 16, you can get without even really trying, at least for social, combat, and mage skills. Although honestly, a DP of 16 means a lot more for some things than it does to others. For the aforementioned social, combat, and mage skills, a DP of 16 is good, but won't let you dominate the game, because you can get negative modifiers for cover, background count, someone being racist towards your metatype, and so on.

A DP of 16 for an unopposed test, on the other hand, is a lot more powerful. If you remember Dancer, from the old Sink, Hollywood, Sink game, I envisioned her as a dancer held back by anti-meta and anti-awakened prejudice, but when I actually rolled those 18 dice, it was more like "Damn, forget getting the mark's interest up, she'd better watch out for entertainment corps doing a hostile extraction on her."