That's the point of a fixed skale. Of course, keep in mind that this is the final dice - if negative modifiers apply, they still will be compensated by more bonus dice, making the Pornomancer only more constant.

Is it? I wasn't sure about that. But if that's the case, it really isn't much of a limitation. I mean, faces that roll 28 dice before negative modifiers are pretty rare.

The Pornomancer is a stupid one-trick pony, and was only scary when he had 50+ dice.

I for myself can live with 32 dice. You can get about the same number by overspecialising anywhere.

That's my point. Their optional "limitation" is something that no sane build would exceed anyways. Even the pornomancer only gets those dice from lots and lots of conditional modifiers, some of which are extremely limited in scope.

So I really don't care about it, because it doesn't affect anything. It's another symptom of fixing the wrong problem, though. The problem was never the pornomancer's dice pools - it was nebulously-defined social skills combined with GMs who confused them with mind control as opposed to subtle influence. Want to reign in out-of-control faces? Define the limits of social skills a bit more stringently.

Myself, I have always just disregared people whose characters have mountain high Charisma but who could not flirt up a hooker really desperate for a John if their life depended on it.

"Hey, I flirt up your character!" "Great, so flirt away!" *rolls dice* "17 hits! You'll sleep with me now!"

So. Retarded.

Social skills are there to embody body language, facial expressions and chemistry between characters, at besst. They can be used to support roleplaying, but not to replace it. Or to cut short endless haggling, maybe. But nothing more. Hence, the pornomancer fails anyway.

I thought the whole point of Roleplaying was to be something in game you could not in real life.

How about the 98 pound woman playing the troll sammie?

The Pornomancer is a viable character build, and people were complaining when he reached 31 dice using only the BBB.

Totally true.

Amusingly, as in Real Life, verbal communication is only 10-20% of communication.
So a Character like the above fails on so many levels, since they almost never have skills like Style, expensive clothes or are attractive - all of which have much more impact than what they say.

Myself, I have always just disregarded people whose characters have mountain high Logic but who could not do multivariable integration if their life depended on it.

"Hey, I calculate the correct alignment of the antenna!" "Great, calculate away!" *Rolls dice* "17 hits! It'll be optimal!"

So. Retarded.

Technical skills are there to embody best practices, memory and tool knowledge, at besst. They can be used to support real intelligence, but not replace it. Or to cut short endless boring technical rants, maybe. But nothing more. Hence, the hacker fails anyway.



Myself, I have always just disregarded people whose characters have mountain high Agility but couldn't hit the centre of a paper target at 100m if their life depended on it.

"Hey, I shoot the guard in the face!" "Great, shoot away!" *Rolls dice* "17 hits! He's a goner!"

So. Retarded.

Firearms skills are there to embody safety knowledge, range estimation and accessory knowledge, at besst. They can be used to support real shooting, but not replace it. Or to cut short endless boring plinking sessions, maybe. But nothing more. Hence, the sam fails anyway.



Myself, I have always just disregarded people whose characters have mountain high Magic but couldn't summon Beelzebub using 21 canbldes and a few litres of virgin blood if their life depended on it.

"Hey, I summon a Fire elemental!" "Great, summon away!" *Rolls dice* "17 hits! It's so damn bound!"

So. Retarded.

Magic skills are there to embody paradigm, terminology and physical coordination, at besst. They can be used to support real magick, but not replace it. Or to cut short endless boring rituals, maybe. But nothing more. Hence, the mage fails anyway.

I see what you did there.

Me too
and I Like it,'cause Heath is right

I'm dancing with Heath (Conga-qeue)
Medicineman

looks down to Fuchs
One more for the Conga Qeue

What Heath said.

That's another issue, where it's the player using her seduction skills on the GM rather than the character using his social skills on the NPC.

I kind of agree with hermit: I like it better when players playing social characters roleplay their discussions. It's more interesting than dice rolling and can make for great scenes. But I also agree that players who aren't as good as their characters shouldn't be penalized too much.

As often, I think the best solution is in the middle ground: players are encouraged to roleplay the discussion for the overall fun but if they don't feel comfortable enough or can't/won't/don't want to do it for one reason or another, I'd at least ask them to give me the argument or the way the character will try to make his point.

If you feel like you have to roll out social encounters, feel free to. Just, why not just play tabletop strategy then. Too cheap for the minis? Seriously, I do not see a reason to bother with RPG then. Substituting social interaction in a highly social game entirely with dice rolls is just missing the point of the game, as is the sociomancer. Yes, by the rules he is viable. But the very setup of the game (which substitutes all actions with collective storytelling, hence, social interaction) makes him a ridiculous build.

If we were talking about a LARP, would you recommend someone who cannot hit a barn on two meters with a shotgun playing a gunslinger or sniper (using soft airs, as I think is the norm in SR LARP events)?

dear gods!
How exactly are catalyst supposed to involve their whole player base (or even just those of us that post here) in a broad analysis of this new book? It's hard enough to get a small group together for a game in a timely fashion. At the very least they'd have to put the rules on general release so we could look at them, and then who would buy them?
I'd like to think that my opinions count for something for the game devs, but trying to construct a rulesset based on what we collectively post here would be impossible!
I don't want the release of the Anniversary Edition to be delayed, since that would delay my getting hold of the book. Whether or not i use the rules changes therein is a personal choice, as it is for any of us.

We roleplay a scene, then roll, then roleplay the result. Same as combat. Players can be abstract ("I chat the guard up to distract him so the rest can sneak past him") or more detailed ("My character walks over to the guard, carrying a lot of folders, and then accidentally drops them, spilling them over the area, softly cursing, then making excuses. Mind helping me gather them up? And do you know where section 4 is? I am supposed to deliver those there..."), but the roll is the same.

Yes, supporting in such a situation is okay, or you get carried away. However, I tend to use that sparsely, mainly if playing out a social encounter really would rip the game's flow apart (as you said, during a break-in when a guard has to be distracted). In your example, though, the second approach would probably work better for the players with me, simply because I have more to work with.

I also allow rolling negotiation after laying down to Johnson why the players want this and that extra, to see how they got the message across. However, only supporting, not replacing the roll. Like you said, in combat, a bit of roleplaying (position of the character, where does he take cover, ect) is necessary too.

YMMV.

Bah, just give me variable TNs and rolls based primarily on skill OR attribute, but not both and I'll be happy.

Good roleplaying that engages players and GM in the story is wonderful, and deserving of extra karma awards at the end of the session. Or beer for the GM. Expecting the player to have the Attributes and Skills the PC does is ludicrous.

hermit,
You're a bit early with that Guye. November is quite far away.

Paint me for a rollplaying powergamer, you thought? The world must be so easy for you, since you only see in black and white. For you, or against you. I never stated where I put myself, but you just had to place me at the extreme because it's easier to deal with criticism when you feel it's from the opposite instead of the reasonable.

If you force all players to roleplay out every social encounter, then you should make them plink at targets for every combat, perform some kind of real world ritual for every summoning and play Uplink for every hack. What's the point in taking social skills in your game? You rarely, if ever, get to use them. They're BPs burnt for less benefit than shooting people in the face. The fact that you're requiring (not wanting, forcing) people to put more thought into one aspect of the game is the attitude that I dislike.

"I'm a Charisma 1, Etiquette 0 Sam, but sure, I can handle a meeting with the Oyabun and come out without losing my head, fingers, or guts. No sweat."


Oh, I am very happy with my scarecrow. Very good at keeping away crows. And Raven shamans, but they're tosspots so I don't miss 'em.

There've been a number of arguments on an IRC network I'm a part of regarding player vs. character social skills and the roleplaying aspect.

My opinion is that the player should, as in combat and every other aspect of the game, go into whatever detail they feel comfortable with (and the group feels appropriate, which should be discussed beforehand). If they just want to say "I seduce the Elf at the bar," let them. If they want to have the conversation, let them. As long as it doesn't detract from others' fun, that is.

If we were all capable of creating realities at whim then we could all act out our role-playing games with the abilities we pretended to have, from sword-fights to fireball hurling. We can't do that (well normally - I maintain hope) so we have the game rules and the dice to determine what we can do and accomplish.

That's not as true of character interaction however. I can pretend to be a sinister CEO and a player can pretend to be a shady criminal negotiating with him, matching wits and second guessing each other. And most of all - we can have fun doing it! It seems a shame to cheat ourselves of the one area where we don't need the rules to support our pretending.

So for me, I really like to have that dialogue and that role-playing in there. As regards tying it to the rules there are two issues. The first is that if we don't tie it to the rules - do all that role-playing and then settle everything with a dice roll at the end (which may contradict how the role-playing has gone), then it undermines the value of that role-playing and discourages ever bothering with it. So the role-playing must affect the game. So what do I do with the stats of the characters and / or the dice rolls? Well a player who has invested a lot in social skills will feel cheated if they aren't taken into account. So I have a number of ways of incorporating them. Obviously the more a player can play their social skills the more I like it, but I'll adjust an NPCs reactions according to the character's skills. I'll also offer suggestions and we'll try to work the dice into the interaction as seamlessly as possible if we need to. Sometimes role-playing for a bit and then concluding with a role such as during negotiating payments with the Johnson. But I'll apply dice pool modifiers according to how the role-playing has gone.

My aim as GM is not to be fair. Fair is overrated. I pay attention to 'fair' because it's a means to make a player feel rewarded for their choices in character building (or punished sometimes). But I also go beyond what the dice and the character sheets say (which is where people may think I've abandoned fair) because it engages the players and they enjoy it (as do I).

Using dice rolls as a substitution for role-playing might be more fair in terms of game balance. But I'm not going to bother with all the effort of running a game if I don't enjoy it and role-playing dialogues is my favourite part. I have to make the role-playing have a bearing on the outcome else it feels pointless and unreal.

My 0.02

K.

I recall playing in another game, where I was the social monkey, but had a limited grasp of the appropriate etiquette (it was an oriental game, and the GM was a serious Nipponophile). Another player was similarly enamoured of the culture as the GM, but was a strict combat monkey. I got so wound up that the other player always got treated better by NPCs and never needed to make any social rolls, since they already knew what the GM felt was appropriate behaviour and language. On the other hand, I was repeatedly punished for breaching protocol that my character ought to have been familiar with.

I'm all for involving RP, and ask my players to detail what they plan to say or do in social situations. If they feel like slipping into character, all the better, and the outcomes of their rolls will perhaps be better and more enduring.

That's poor GM'ing without doubt. I would have been providing a lot of hints and information to your PC given that he should certainly have known these things. I've similarly offered pointers to a player running a high Charisma PC who didn't have that good a social graces. And I believe that the player himself actually improved his own Diplomacy skill as a result of playing that character.

EDIT: Err, when I said "similarly offered pointers" that was similar in principle. Not implying that you lack social graces, ornot.

-Khadim (who clearly needs to refresh his own Etiquette skill).

Actually, I just assumed you had something to say besides trolling and attempted to see what you, through your trolling, might want to say. Want to be understood? Try expressing yourself clearly.


And you cannot read either, apparently, since I explicitly stated that I ndo not require every social encounter be played out in detail.


Tabletop gaming is not LARPing, so it always abstracts some interactions and actipons to rolls, because combat is much easier simulated that way than by finding an appropriate location, appropriate airsofts, appropriate opposition NPC actors, airsofts and costumes for them, and then paying for that all.

However, I do not see why that means you have to cut back in all areas equally.


Race is troll, I take it?

Also, what knasser says.


It appears to me your GM wanted to screw you over there.

An interjection here, try to keep things civil here please. This thread has gone far from it's original topic, but we've allowed that because it stays relevant and the original purpose wasn't going to be met in the format it was made. That being said, try to avoid falling into old traps such as Magic/Vs/Mundane and What is Role Playing. Stick to the topic ( discussion of the new rules incorporated), or start a new thread.

1 - 1 (defaulting) = 0, look at it in this way, he/she can't glitch.

Is it wisdom? Strange, I was convinced that this forum was on internet.

That only helps if they where prepared for the gas, as chemical seal must be implemented, taking one complex action and can't be kept imlemented all the time as it only has air for an houer.

Oh for goodness sake.

Military Armour is not compatible with PPP or FFBA. The original example was bogus.

i certainly hope the listien to the petipotyion.

I've never played a social monkey in a game because I am not a social person. I have trouble getting through the practice job interviews my dad makes me go through. Role Playing the smarmy characters? I'd never manage it.

I know what I'm not good at and I stay away from it.

That doesn't mean the game shouldn't support it. I can't shoot IRL, but there's no reason why I can't play a street sam or other combat machine. We play characters, not ourselves.

Not to mention there's the reverse problem. If a player is good at RPing the social interactions, he can get away with a CHA 1 Uncouth troll, and still breeze through social challenges. He can rely on his native skill to get himself through, regardless of what the sheet says.

Quite. But I at least understand combat situations, even though IRL I'd break down and turn into blubbering jelly (I blame Quake). OTOH I don't understand social situations (that is to say, I have a terrible time reading faces, I can't fast talk, and can't think on my feet fast enough to make up a plausible lie about information I don't have--I also can't remember names).



Also true. Jim was one of those people. He didn't ever play the "socially inept" but he did manage to play up the right phrases and avoid the dice while maintaining IC.

He misses the point of his charactert then, though, and will be called upon it as much as the cha 1 etiquette 0 player playing the pornomancer. Attributes should reflect what the plyer wants to do with the character. Thus, if you are a social person and like to play as one, build one. It's not like Cha 5 is gonna ruin any build, anyway.

I have noticed, though, that most social people like to play high charisma characters, because it allows them to work their charms. It might just be personal observation, bias, or something between the two, of course.


Still, I see no reason to reward the socially inept person who rolls out all their social interactions on the same level as someone with a well thought out performance of his character. That's what Karma for good roleplaying is for. The rules themselves are biased against social situations being acted out.

Again, if you want to roll out everything, you might want to consider tabletop minis, or playing computer games. The thing that sets tabletop RPGs apart from the latter two (and makes up for it's shortcomings in immersive background detail or tactical combat depth) is how social interaction can be flexibly and immersively acted out.

Had a player who played a 1 Cha, 1 Log combat monster. Player was pretty smart though. So at the end of the session doling out Karma, the player asks for karma for one of their nice plans. I say it was a nice plan but their character is Logic 1 so it's not really in character. Logic has now been raised.

Also, the character propositioned an NPC at one point. I asked what's your Charisma, 1 he replies. The answer is "no" comes the NPC's response to general amusement of the group.

A GM can handle these sorts of things fine.

K.

Although handled well, I think it misses the point.

A Player designs a Character, with Attributes and Skills for them to do things within the gameworld of the RPG.
If the Player then chooses to ignore the Character design, what's the point of designing Characters ??

Attributes and Skills are limits on what a Character can do, so allowing Characters with no strategy skills to make strategic plans should be dis-allowed.
If he wants to make strategic plans, he should have to gain the skill before he can do so.
If he has low social skills, he should find social interaction hard - and maybe the skill system should penalise Characters more.

Obviously, this completely fails for physical skills.

As for things like 'I can handle a gun, so can my Character' - the Character can't if the Player doesn't take the skill.
That's the limit the Player accepts and agrees to when designing the Character.
It shouldn't have to be upto the GM to have to enforce that, it should be implicit in what a Character having or not having a skill means.

There's at least 1 RPG on the market that doesn't have an Intelligence attribute for Characters, leaving the Character to be as smart as the Player is.

You can do all that without nerfing the socially-inept player. He gets to play the character he wants to be, and you still can reward particularly good roleplay.

The point is that it's a form of character abuse. However, if you're forcing players to RP out every last social situation, you're rewarding him for that abuse.


I've gamed with people with severe dyslexia before. What happens if they want to play a high-Logic character? We're discussing people who can barely read at a high school level, got straight D's in their classes, and so on and so forth. Should they be banned from p laying hermetic mages?

I see the use of social skills like any other skills, you roll them and they determine the outcome, anything else would be unfair in a pointbased system.
if i dont have to buy these skills because i as a player have them, this is unfair, as the whole point in roleplaying is the possibility to be someone else.

Also in a fantasyworld i dont let someone without alchemy skills make greek fire just because the player of that character happens to be a chemist.

So stick to what your character knows regardless of what you know.

On the other hand i like szenes played out and enjoy good roleplaying. I encourage it, but not by ignoring the character. This can be a thin line as some players tend to play chars they cant play, but i like to give them at least a chance to grow into their role.

I therfore award roleplaying Karma more on a basis of group effort and mutual fun than to single out individual performances.

Personally, I don't mind social skill rolls, but prefer them for quantifiable things, such as sleazing past a guard, making a partygoer think you "belong" at a nightclub, etc. For normal, everyday social interactions, I prefer roleplaying.

However, I think players need to make an effort to roleplay their characters according to the social ability of the character, and GMs need to enforce it by how NPCs react to them. Now, the old ork street samurai, from the Street Samurai Catalog, had a Charisma of 1 and wasn't a social misfit or a taciturn basement dweller. Characters with low Charisma and social skills should still be able to interact with others. But they will come off as wooden, or insincere, or otherwise "off" a bit, and they will have to hustle and work to get what the gent with the Charisma of 5 and etiquette: 3 can get simply with a winning smile.

And, I supose, you'd give the character common sense for free? Because you WILL have to rein this character in at some point and inform the player that flirting up the oyabun's daughter in front of him as a metahuman is not a good idea, otherwise this player will be hit with an anvil and never know why? Yes, speaking from experience with letting the socially inept play socially gifted characters.


Which I never wrote, but apparently you suffer from severe dyslexia when it comes to reading.


Severe dyslexia is nothing that affects cognitive thought; it is damaged pattern recognition centers (it's not that they don't know, in principle,what a word should look like, it's just that they cannot always apply that to what they write). Would you allow a person with downs syndrome to play the strategist? Countrary to Dyslexia, Downs DOES affect the capacity for logical thought.


Certainly. However, going below of what you, as a player, can do, is far easier than going above that. Yes, in LARP, this would apply to physical skills as well. In tabletop gaming, this part of character immersion is abstracted with dice rolls. No need to say, though, it is necessary or good to apply that to manageeable things like roleplaying social interactions too.


I have grown to dislike the socialist approach to Karma distribution. It punishes those who make the game fun (for me as a GM, and other players), and it rewards those who are more dragged along.

It is no punishment if they do not get lots more of Karma. If they just roleplay to get more Karma (instead of having fun in the Process) i pity them.

Sure not, but if the crap player gets the same Karma for being dragged along, reading out loud from Arsenal during play, and rolling dice occasionally to shoot people, it feels unfair since that guy never really did anything.

How exactly is that different to someone just defeating enemies to get karma?

I also dislike smearing out karma awards to be the same across the group. Karma is a reward and is viewed by players as such. They, in my experience, universally like getting karma for clever ideas, empassioned role-playing or occasionally sheer dumbfounding luck. Now a very noble player might get satisfaction from having earned his entire group karma for the clever idea, but I think it diminishes the sense of reward for two reasons. Firstly, if everyone is having clever ideas then unless you awarded karma for each one (leading to huge karma gains) then the personal responsibility for having done something is much less. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, players are selfish. They like to think that the karma is "mine, my precious, I wants it". In fact, they relish it. And thirdly it is diminished because Hermit is right that if the player who sits around playing on a console and occasionally rolling a dice gets the same reward that the more active participants get, then everyone else feels cheated. There have been studies in which a group of people earned individual sums of money for accomplishing tasks. When the money was increased but everyone got the same with someone doing nothing to help, reported satisfaction was much lower even though the amount of money was actually higher and a greater real reward was given. Sense of fairness has a larger effect on satisfaction than the reward itself does in many cases. And I'd guess that is especially true in the case of rewards that are entirely mental (such as karma) without other intrinsic value.

My thoughts,

Khadim.

If someone is really just dragged along and only taking part in the game when directly asked to, showing no initiative of its own, then he wont get any RP Karma.
I assumed by rewarding _more_ on that group efford _than_ on individual performance that everyone is at least trying to paticipate in the game.

But if he as a player is only just somewhat more introvert than extrovert i dont punish him for that but rather challenge him to do his best.

Karma for clever Ideas is a seperate point in the list btw

Depends on what he plays. If he is the one who INSISTED on playing the influencomancer, no, I will not reward him for 'doing his best' when he leaves the face stuff to the streetsam or mage because he really is not the social kinda person. Same with an impulsive, brave, oc (seek danger) streetsam who always makes up intricate plans to avoid all harm to his character or a professional secret service black ops guy who things infiltration means 1 kg C12.

And I agree.



I believe the point you were responding to by Hermit was a general one, not limited to role-playing awards. Hence my taking your reply to cover all aspects.

K.

I dislike the karma competition. Often it is a thinly veiled powerplay by the GM, and makes people play in ways they don't really want to, as long as they think it will impress the GM favorably.

To a certain extent, I'd give all the players "Common Sense" for free. They don't necessarily know everything the characters do. When it comes to a player vs character knowledge situation, I always try to make sure my players are informed of everything their characters should know.


You have a vastly oversimplified concept of what dyslexia is like.

But to answer your question, yes, I'd let someone with Down Syndrome (Not "Down's", Dr. Down did not have it) play a strategist if that's what they wanted. Playing with people with severe disabilities is a challenge, but a worthwhile one. You have to help them anyways, so giving more advice isn't a hardship.

Do you think people with disabilities should not be allowed to play RPGs?


Considering this isn't exactly the case, I'd say that encouraging roleplay is one thing; but demanding it is another.