QUOTE (Cain @ May 16 2009, 10:37 PM) 
Sorry, but I don't like railroading players, and that includes their character choices. I've personally witnessed someone bring a pornomancer into a game, and everyone had fun with it. Right now, I have a player who brought in a skillwire generalist, and he's having fun with it.
You can't arbitrarily pick on players for creating characters you don't like. You have to have a standard. In my games, I have the dice pool cap, which prevents pornomancers and spider-man, but still allows for off-the-wall builds and powerful characters. In other games, they have house rules that fill the same roles. But you should never toss out a character simply because you don't like it.
You can't arbitrarily pick on players for creating characters you don't like. You have to have a standard. In my games, I have the dice pool cap, which prevents pornomancers and spider-man, but still allows for off-the-wall builds and powerful characters. In other games, they have house rules that fill the same roles. But you should never toss out a character simply because you don't like it.
Wait, you're contradicting yourself. First you said that the climber is a problem because he takes over too much spotlight time if the GM wants to incorporate his specialty. Now, you're saying that the GM can't ban any strange builds, because it should be perfectly possible to incorporate every specialty just fine. Which is it?
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A good game can handle many different conditions, and many different takes on the setting. Rifts, for example, lends itself to only one type of play.
And I've played in many "convention games" of SRM, and we all had a good time with it. In fact, with one or two exceptions, I've always had fun at convention games. What's your beef with them?
And I've played in many "convention games" of SRM, and we all had a good time with it. In fact, with one or two exceptions, I've always had fun at convention games. What's your beef with them?
My beef is that people always use them to attack the game. Most, if not all of Shadowrun's problems are solved by an active GM exercising his discretion to keep the game fun. But then you have these convention gamers saying "but I play in conventions, where the GM is required to follow all of the RAW even if it's insane, so I'm going to make a lot of noise about what I perceive to be problems with the RAW." Going to a convention means accepting the problems with conventions. Complaining that the game doesn't work there is like complaining about hitting yourself. If you know that convention gamers will try and abuse certain interpretations of RAW, and for some reason the GM won't be able to do anything about it, why do you go? In the end, conventions are just used as another tool by SR4 detractors to attack the game on ultimately shaky ground.
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What, you've never heard of crtitcism before? If a movie doesn't meet Ebert and Roeper's standards, it's not good. Ultimately, although it's the consumers who decides if something is popular, it's the critic that decides if something is any good.
You're not a critic any more than I am, or any of us are on Dumpshock. What kind of arrogance is that -- Cain is the great and legendary Roger Ebert, the rest of us consumers are just idiots who can't judge goodness for ourselves? I accept that there is such a thing as criticism, I just don't accept that you're specially qualified to deliver it. Those on Dumpshock are just as expert on Shadowrun and RPGs as you are, and you cannot tell us what's good and what isn't like you're some kind of RPG maven. That's even more insulting than merely making the pronouncement of whether it's good or bad. Telling us that only you can make an expert decision, the rest of us can just consume crap like pigs to slop? Give me a break.