This is the heart of the matter isn't it? In the end it is a game and a lot of how it plays out comes down to "social contract" kind of stuff like this. You sit down with your Face/Pornomancer and say, "Listen, I know you invested heavily in your character to do these things and I'm willing to let you, but by the same token you need to be fair to the other players and let them do the things they're invested to do."

The problem comes when you let a Face convince an NPC of something ridiculous for the sake of plot and for the sake of giving them some spotlight time, but they decide that this is their license to take over every other aspect of the game. I convinced the researcher to give me his Access ID so I should be able to convince the guards to let us through, the Mr. Johnson to give us more money, the Fixer to give us gear for free, and that super-hot elf over there to strip and dance for me in public.

A lot of times, to make an entertaining game the GM must allow things to happen at dramatically appropriate times that cannot be applied as a general rule. That's why I don't ascribe to the "simulationist" view of running a game. I think simulationist often = no fun. I would much rather have things happen because they are good for the story at that particular moment in time than holding fast to some sense of "realism." There's a reason that action movies make so much money being ridiculously "unrealistic" - because that's what is fun.

Yes, that's bad. Although that's not limited to Face characters. Problematic players that want to hog the spotlight will find a way regardless of the character they play. A streetsam could just as well start to solve every problem with violence, because he happens to be really good at violence, regardless of what the rest of the group thinks.

Agreed, it can happen with any character archetype. My main point was is that it is something that needs to be solved from a metagame angle. Trying to solve it through crunchy game rules is something that will never be finished, the proverbial "slippery slope."

Honestly, those two examples are not ones I would have a big problem with - it's not the quantifiable uses of social skills I have a problem with, it's GMs who let the face turn everything into a social skill roll, no matter how ludicrous it is, or let them effectively turn other PCs into their personal NPCs. I play faces a lot, so I'm hardly advocating they be neutered; just that social skills should have plausible limits.


@3278:
I agree that verisimilitude and realism aren't incompatible, but realism doesn't seem realistic when the face rolls the dice, something implausible happens, and the only justification is "people in real life convince other people all kinds of weird stuff all the time." If something happens that is possible, but it doesn't seem plausible to the player, then that's what I'm talking about. To use an example I used in another thread - my dwarf is an incredible cheapskate, who shopped around for the cheapest nursing home to put his folks in. Now suddenly he's springing for the face's steak dinner, when an hour earlier they were arguing about whether to shoot the hostages or not? And that's just a rather mild example.

But I'm not even sure the social skills are that realistic when used in that manner. A broad statement that faces can do all kinds of stuff, and rolling the dice, don't really prop up Shadowrun's rather simplistic social skill rules that well. And again, I'm not arguing for gimping social skills, but for making them more reasonable. They should let you get past that guard post, fit in at the corporate cocktail party, and all kinds of other things.

It is not a legal character. It is a kitbashed character with elements of 4.0 and 4.5. And it favors certain builds over others, thereby favoring certain players over others. Imagine this: the power players, knowing the 4.5 changes are coming, buy up their attributes while the regular players buy up their skills. Also, the power players buy up skillsofts. Now, the changeover happens. Now, not only can the normal players not catch up, the power players gain a bundle of cash selling off the Activesofts.

You might slam down on this in a home game, but what about a Missions event? I could pull this off between GM's, and no one would notice.

but what about a Missions event?
The Devs allready gave their Ok to just Stick with the new rules from now on,no need to rearrange your Char
So ,its no Problem in Homerounds,its no Problem in Conventions and its no Problem with Missions.
One More Point :If Players are inforced to Retcon their Chars,than they should also get (Rückwirkend....retroactive) more Karma
and in effect you will have the same Chars with only ....100 Karma instead of 80 Karma

It is not a legal character sorry,but who are you to say what is a legal Char and what not ?
if The Developer say its a legal Char and its ok for Missions ,if the GMs say its a legal Char....than you're plain wrong

I could pull this off between GM's, and no one would notice.
Everybody could,you could also write down more Karma or higher Skills,noone would notice either.I expect all my players to be Honest (the same from my GMs) and I fared well so far

the power players gain a bundle of cash selling off the Activesofts.
Thats the same Problem with SR3 and the Streetindex of Waepons. You create a (f.E.) 1 Million ¥ Char,who buys
lots and lots of weapons with Streetindex 4 and sells those weapons with a ....Margin (?) of ,maybe 200 or 300 %
Its not a "Rulesproblem", but a "Powergamerproblem"

he who dances with no Problems
Medicineman

Retconning this is simply impractical.

Bye
Thanee

Any problem can be solved with the appropriate level of force and violence. The only problem that can't is an immovable object.

--



I doubt it's nearly as bad as you think.

First, the character would have needed to be made during the time frame when the changes had been announced.
Second, the character would have had to spent his earned nuyen on skillsofts/skillwire instead of vesting any more than 1 rank into the skills themselves. Autosofts replace skills, not augment them, and characters can only learn 1 skill or improve any number of skills. Meaning the 1 rank in each skill is necessary to prevent the character from taking ludicrously long periods of time just getting the skills. 7 skills with active softs = 7 missions just to get them all to 1. Further, the power gamer will only be able to improve these at a rate of 1 rank between adventures.
Third, the power game will be spending nuyen on activesofts that he will likely sell back for 50% return on the price he bought it at. This means the power gamer is only getting 50% of any income spent towards activesofts.

So what does this all mean? To get any real advantage you'd have to create an obviously munchkined character at creation just when news about karma cost changes came out. Otherwise, activesofts are expensive for a simple +1 improvement (assuming 3 is par for commonly used skills). If you have a 3 you're pay 12,000 for a +1 improvement (that overrides your current skill), which is ludicrously overpriced compared to any other augment. +1 agility is 8,000 at its highest price, +1 strength is 7,000, and +1 logic is 10,000. Further, the reflex record is 10,000 for a +1 to just one skill (and it doesn't override your skill). A reflex recorder for a skill group is either about 8,250 or 6,250 for a +1 depending on whether the group is a three or four skill group.

In other words, the number of character that get to abuse the change in cost from x3 to x5 is going to be a very small number of total characters, and it's -only- a problem for groups like Missions where players may not always be consistent. Further, these are going to be players that are going to power game/munchkin anyway so they will be above the normal player. For consistent SR groups it won't be a problem since it can be discussed if it's a problem and solved.

@Cain... I gotta agree with the points above from Medicineman here... all you points have been solved by devs and developers...
I have to say that you are wrong; but hey, that is okay, we all make mistakes from time to time......

Keep the Faith

Not all Mission GM's have access to SR4.5. The changeover is still happening.


I fail to see the problem. Even under 4.5, the skillwire samurai is a viable concept. A character who buys up activesofts is not automatically a munchkin.

I'm afraid your math is off. Under SR4.0, activesofts are 3000 x Rating, maxing out at 12,000 nuyen. Under SR4.5 (which I don't have handy, so someone check me on this) it's 10,000 nuyen times the rating, for a max of 40,000. Even at 50%, you're collecting 8000 nuyen per skillsoft-- and some character types start with a lot of skillsofts.

I have a skillwire samurai who I haven't converted to Manhattan yet. He's got over 10 rating 4 skillsofts. That's 80,000+ nuyen, all perfectly legal and on a non-munchkinized character. A munchkin character would buy the skillsofts, even though he can't use them, planning on selling them once the change hit.

It appears that you read the first line and ignored the rest of the rest of the second point. There is a fundamental difference between a character that uses rating 4 activesofts with 1 rank in the activesoft skill, and those that have no ranks in the skill. Your example implied that the power gamers utilizes activesofts to raise their skills rather than using karma to raise them and instead invest in attributes. The character then sells his activesofts and invests his skills via karma. There is nothing munchkin about it. It will take a lot of karma for the skillwire character to reach the same skill levels that non-skillwire character has. In addition, you won't be able to dump all your activesofts at once, you'll only be able to dump them at a rate of one every 22 karma if they're rating 4 without losing effectiveness. Assuming the average of 4.5 karma per session, it would take 5 sessions just to get enough karma to do it, and it would take 5 sessions before that one skill was improved up to where it had been with the activesoft. Let's take your example of x10 Rating 4 activesofts. With no ranks at all, it would require 220 karma to be able to sell all those activesofts off, or 49 sessions at the 4.5 karma average. In order words, assuming 1 run a week (game time), it will take your character practically a year (game time) to fully realize that investment. With x10 Rating 4 activesofts, it only amounts to about 2900/week. Or to look at it another way, you're not improving your character at all (via karma) for 49 sessions.

If someones takes all his skills at rating 1, he can cut down to 40 sessions to earn enough karma to replace the activesofts. It will take about 4 sessions to earn enough karma to replace one activesoft and remain equally effective. This generates about 3500/week and you're still not improving your character with karma during this time. If all the skills are at rating 2, it will take 32 sessions. If all the skills are at rating 3, it will take 18 sessions.

So while yes, you could do that, and pull in an extra 140,000 nuyen, it will take you at least 40 sessions to realize your investment (I highly doubt someone with activesofts will have rating 2 or 3 skills except in unusual circumstances), and your character is only improving via augments at that point. The character that decided not to do that gets to improve via augments AND karma.

Actually, I was just reading through the Missions FAQ. Equipment purchased at chargen can be sold at 30% of book value, while most everything else is sold at 10%. So at 30% you would sell a Rating 4 activesoft for 12,000 (0 profit). At 10%, you would only sell it for 4,000 (a loss of 8,000). Considering your complaint is in regards to missions, I believe that solves that issue. So no profit for you.

You haven't read the section on cracking copy protection, have you?

It's trivial to duplicate a program. And in this case, you just crack the program, burn a few copies for yourself, and resell the original. So, you don't have to spend any karma or lose any skill ratings to pull off this trick.

SS: I believe that's the *base* value. You can always increase this by net successes on a Negotiation test. A particularly dirty trick is for the decker and face to combine forces, one cracking the copy protection and the other reselling the originals.

Once you crack a program, it is no longer an "Original," because it is now Cracked, which means you cannot use it in its Original State, and it must be continuously upgraded from that point, at whichever interval the GM sets... as such you are only recovering 10% by selling it, so it is still a net loss in resources... Seems kind of silly to me...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

Sure, except you could logically keep selling the cracked version.

Oddly enough the original GenCon release of SR4 was a all black book with a silver logo embossed on the spine and cover. ...

Again though, at only 10% of actual value, at best... why would someone go to you to buy said software when they can go to a "legitimate" Warez Site or Cracker Haven? Why would a shadowrunner be trying to involve himself in business, it is contrary to the goals of most 'runners...

Not saying that you cannot have a game about entrepreneurialism, but that is generally outside of the norm for Shadowrun, though from other posts on this Forum, there are a few tables that delve into this sort of thing; so of course your mileage may vary...

Keep the Faith

I try and avoid reading unwired - but don't you have to buy stuff from Warez site? At 20% of the actual value? So the reason to get stuff off you is the 50% discount?

I could be wrong though.

No, you can buy cracked programs at 10% cost, not 50% or 80%... Cracked Software is dirt cheap... which is why it is such a poor choice for shadowrunners trying to make a little extra money... Profit margins are way to slim...

And besides, Unwired is not that bad at all...

Keep the Faith

Ah, so you'd sell it at 5% cost because you only get half price for equipment right?

Not sure were you are going there, but in the most likely scenario, you would probably not get the full 10% unless you had a top notch Sales Rep (negotiator) on your team working to get full price rather than farming it out to someone else (which is generally why you only get a partial percentage of any gear you sell), as you would never sell it for more than 10% value (if you tried, they would just go to another site and get it for 10%)

I would say that the best you could hope for is the 10% value for cracked software... as I said, too much work for too little return...

Keep the Faith

AS for other equipment, I think that you are confusing Warez Sites for Hardware... they are not the same... Warez is another term for Pirated Software or Black Market Software (Page 21 of Unwired)

Keep the Faith

In Missions, it's based off of retail (book) cost.

Again, for Cracked Software, the Book COst is 10% of Normal Cost... so therefore, you are in the red almost immediately...
Buy a rating 4 Skillsoft (40,000 Nuyen), Crack it (Now it is only worth 4000 Nuyen), sell it and you are now short 36000 Nuyen... Of course you can continue to sell copies, but it is a waste of time in my opinion...

This is per the Books...

Keep the Faith

No, book cost is 40,000. The Missions FAQ specifically lists Retail (book) cost.

There's nothing stopping someone from cracking software, repackaging it, and reselling it at 50% of retail. Fortunately, most PC's won't want to put in the effort necessary to make such a scam work. That doesn't mean that there aren't people in Shadowrun who aren't doing just that, however.

In my games, things can sell for a lot more than retail. However, the PC's are experienced shadowrunners with good contacts, so I assume they know how to tell if they're being cheated. Not everyone else will have that same advantage.

So you are telling me that Cracked software sells for the same as uncracked Software?

Odd...

Keep the Faith

I'm saying it has the same base. In Missions, where everything sells for the same base cost, you can get away with scams like this, particularly if the next GM doesn't notice it's cracked software. Like I said, though, the PC's are shadowrunners, not software pirates. They have other goals.

Did not know that...

As for having other priorities, I completely agree with you there...

Keep the Faith

One... there was a change in karma awards as well. So while attribute costs have gone up, so have the karma awards. The biggest change in this is now that skills are relatively cheaper than they were in the past, while attributes are roughly as expensive than they were in the past.
Two... skill buyers pre-4.5 yes get hit a bit harder than attribute buyers, but the only case you bring up where this is a big problem is cons, and that's a pretty niche case.


Three... don't forget SOTA and program degradation. (quite frankly, I believe that chippers build this in to keep people from simply cracking the basic copy protection and selling copies)
Four... you obviously aren't looking at the same selling rules as the rest of us...
Base fenced cost is 30% of market value, not 50%. In the case of software, there's a flooded market so now we're down to 10% (why buy from you for 30% when I can get it off him for 10%). (makes sense, base 30%... then I can easily reduce that by 50% looking at the street costs chart for rough guidelines).

See, that is what I was thinking as well, but Cain is arguing that Missions is treated differently... I have no real experience in playing missions as I have a steady group (though we ocassionally play out the missions scenarios), and I though that they were treated the same...

I don't really know what to think here, but I always defaulted to the base books and that was my understanding of how things were handled...

Keep the Faith

Yeah I have no experience w/ Missions and cons either.

But the hypothetical abuse I see... going to a 4a GM and saving up a pile of karma, then spending it w/ the sr4 GM (who should be awarding less karma as well).

However, my issue is more with the GM/judge here than the dishonest player. The GM is guilty of not applying the latest errata (after it's been out for literally months), and it's his job in a missions context (IMO) to referee this kind of abuse.

Agreed...

Keep the Faith

Re: karma awards. I haven't played the Manhattan Missions, so I don't know if they've been brought up to spec yet. I do know that the Denver Missions haven't been updated, so if you're still playing that arc (I am) you're going to really lose out.

Okay see, you don't understand the term book cost. The book cost of cracked software is 10% of the cost of new software. That means a Rating 4 activesoft that is cracked has a book value of 4,000, not 40,000. Monkey with it all you want to fit in with that delusional world of yours, but the book cost of cracked software is 10% of the original value. Would you have preferred it they had set out a chart saying that cracked activesofts cost Rating x 1000 nuyen instead of 10% of the cost of the original value? You're just trying to monkey it into a favorable situation to prove a non-existent disagreement you have with SR4.

What this means is that any cracked activesoft will sell for 1% of the value posted in the BBB.

A real example. A rating 4 activesoft costs 40,000 new. A cracked rating 4 activesoft costs 4,000. If you're selling the cracked version, then you sell at 10% of 4,000 not the 40,000 value, so you get a paltry 400 nuyen (400 - 12000 = -11600). Even if it was at 4,000 (10% of 40,000) you would still lose money (4000 - 12000 = -8000). However let's go with 40,000 as the book value, you still need to sell for 30% of original BBB value in order to break even, this means it requires a GM intervention. The question becomes what GMs will reasonably allow you to sell cracked software at 30%?

*Sigh*

What is the cost, in the book, of a rating 4 activesoft? 40,000, right?

That's called "book cost", or retail, according to the Missions faq.

Cracked software is like a program option. It doesn't change the book cost at all, it's just a price modifier.

There isn't a separate book cost for cracked software. If there were, there'd be a pricing sheet, like there is for the other programs. Instead, "cracked" is a price modifier you apply to the book cost of software.

You're right that it's up to the GM, but some GM's hands are tied, such as Missions GM's. Personally, I'd ask the players if they want to be shadowrunners or software pirates, and remind them that I want to run a game about shadowrunners.

You're right that it's up to the GM, but some GM's hands are tied, such as Missions GM's.
Thats not True
I Am a Missions GM (Hamburg Missions from Pegasus )We have Guidelines and so on,but we also have a Brain and a Judgement (GMV in German)
Cracked Software sells for 10% ,thats only 4000 ¥ and it degrades each Month.Thats RAW.
Its not a "Program Option"
To say differently is to Ignore the Facts

HougH!
Medicineman

So to end this argument:

Cain: Your quote above references a dishonest player, not a rule. Cracked software cannot be sold as if uncracked in Missions or by RAW "."

Please move on to another topic of discussion.

Exactly, to list out a whole new chart saying (Rating * 4000) for the cost of cracked software is just insane. Charts take up ridiculous amounts of space as it is. Cracked software is a distinctly different item from uncracked software and this is shown by the simple fact that the items behave differently. To apply the book value of uncracked software as the sell value for an item that behaves completely differently is nothing more than behaving dishonestly. It's no different than just writing in an extra 10,000 on your character sheet for no reason what-so-ever.

The sad part is, I don't play Missions (I play in a highly customized version of Shadowrun that includes no magic) and I know how stupid and wrong Cain's interpretation is.

This Is Offtopic,but I'm curious.Can you Tell me more about It ,maybe in another Thread ?

with a curious Dance
Medicineman

Not really, it is one of those rollplay vs roleplay debates that pop up in any rpg (especially with social skills). My usual way of handling things is to have the PC make a die roll (offer roleplaying suggestion based off the die roll) and then have the PC talk to the NPC. The die roll becomes secondary at this point.

PC1 [angry] : I know you're a con man! I know it'll only bring me trouble if I do what you ask!
Face: And that's why you love me.
PC1 [in love]: Oh, Face!

Yes, let's dispense with all of this jabbering about cracked software. Derailing my derailment of the thread with another derailment... hmmpf.

Rolling the dice for face skills vs. another PC is hard to do because it is hard to quantify what penalties and bonuses should apply. If the PC is, say, a frugal miser, then what should the penalty be for the face trying to mooch a meal off of him? For most other characters, it probably wouldn't even require a roll, but for this guy - if he's a total hardass about not spending money, why should he suddenly change 180 degrees? Do you give the face -4 to his roll, -12 to his roll, or flat out tell him that his face senses warn him getting this guy to part with his nuyen would be a waste of time?

Social skills are "on" all the time. If the GM doesn't put reasonable limits on them, then you can wind up in a situation where the other players feel like they aren't getting to play their own characters. Or they can feel like their character is ruined - if their background can get overruled by a dice roll with arbitrary modifiers, then why even bother giving the character a personality in the first place?

@Glyph: That could be an interesting discussion, but maybe it'd be better if it had its own thread?

Posted new thread for that.

Nobody doesn't have access. All it takes is an internet connection and several clicks of the mouse. I guess you need Acrobat reader too. But if you have those things, you have access to the most current SR4 rules.

However, I agree with what you've been saying on this thread, that you probably shouldn't change over to SR4A in the middle, because of how it impacts chargen. Before SR4A, skillsofts were an awesome idea. If an SR4 character bought a dozen skillsofts to start out, and then the game went to SR4A, he'd have a huge unfair advantage over new people who joined the campaign partway through. The new costs for attributes also screw up starting character builds. When building an SR4 character, you want to pig out on skills, and get attributes later. When building an SR4A character, you want to do the opposite. I like SR4A, but it's a bad idea to switch to it in the middle of a campaign because there are enough changes to cause potentially serious disruptions.

Nothing wrong with the gravity, except maybe a bit of rounding : acceleration of (approx.) 10m/s2 , over 3 seconds, gives average speeds of 5m/s, 15m/s, and 25m/s for those 3 seconds. totalling 45m travelled (rounded to 50m). Similarly, the next 3 seconds give a distance travelled of 35 + 45 + 55m , or 135m (close-ish to the given 150m).

If anything's wrong, it's with the air resistance, not the gravity.

Not to be too difficult, but you could apply that logic to anyone wo is more skilled than someone else in any aspect of the game.. Can't use this character, he has 300 karma under his belt, oh well... or, can't use this hacker, he has programmed all of his hacking software to rating 7 levels, that would be an unfair advantage... Sorry, I just can't get on board with this line of thought...

Sorry Larme but I have to respectfully disagree...

Keep the Faith

It's not that the characters would be too powerful, it's that they're too powerful in conversion.

If you've got a skillwire sammie who's heavily invested in attributes, you're going to come out ahead. And someone who saved that stuff for character development and roleplay reasons, is going to get screwed over. I really don't like the thought of screwing over players, especially because they tried to roleplay their character.

I do not agree... the caharacter has not changed in any fashion... the only thing that changes is that advancement is more expensive from teh point of conversion (as the only thing that changes is advancement costs)... so no effective change in capabilities whatsoever has occurred here... you are still only as capable post change as you were pre change... So In my opinion, your argument ultimately falls flat...

Keep the Faith

I don't know about you, but I like to plan out the development of my characters. They have goals, things they want to acquire and things they want to accomplish.

Let's set up the roleplayer and problem player (I know, they're not opposites) and compare. We'll use a mage for our example. Both of you initiated, but you invested in skills and metamagics while the power player simply increased his Magic every chance he got.

4.5 hits the table. Now all of a sudden, you're seriously gimped if you want to start increasing your magic to match. By purely increasing his magic, the power player already has an edge. Now, you're punished for not optimizing the hell out of your character when you had the chance.

I do plan out the advancement of my characters... to a degree... I know what I want and how I want to get there, but it is fluid... sometimes things change that require some shift in my plans... that is natural...

However, for your example, that is their choice... why all of a sudden woud the roleplayer desire to catch up to the Rollplayer? It was never his goal to start with, so why, all of a sudden, at conversion time does he feel the need to Catch up?

That is something that smacks of gamesmanship to me... and is not really a valid concern at my table... so now it takes him extra Karma, so what, according to almost everyone here, the extra Karma Award covers the extra cost of the stat, so no actual change in advancement speed there... The Extra Karma Award compensates fot the Extra Cost of the Atrtribute... Null Perspiration...

Sounds pretty even to me...

Keep the Faith