oh yeah - fair point.

I'm sure he is a lot more than 400BP. Runners take on those foes in teams. Bond takes them on alone or with a Bond girl in tow (usually as a handicap, because he is too awesome otherwise).

Well, it really depends on the DPs of the people he's fighting.

Being a Magnificent Bastard doesn't have a BP requirement.

Huh. I suppose that makes sense.

Also, I love how we still manage to stay tangentially on-topic while talking about James Bond as a Shadowrun character.

You know, I have been trying to come up with a way to say that for a day or two now, and now I do not have to do so...Very Well Said

Thank You...

Keep the Faith

Runners are just too chicken.

James Bond just has lots of edge and has somehow finagled the GM into letting it refresh whenever he sleeps with someone.

So to recap.

New GM with New Players who are making choices which he does not agree with.
Answer: Tell them no. Make them convince you otherwise.

Free contacts based on CHA (and maybe etiquette,) always a good look.

Min/maxing leads to stagnant character concepts since the most efficient choice is always constant.

Karmagen Uber Alles.

James Bond has a special VD/symbiote that gives him sick edge from bonin classy ladies.

There are various forms of min-maxing. You can min-max for greatest numerical efficiency. You can min-max for greatest dice pool. You can min-max for greatest versatility. There can be varying objectives to min-maxing, and while some of the objectives may overlap, I have found it difficult to make all(or even just 2) of them overlap completely. You will have to make some compromises and with the various min-max methods, it is difficult to apply all of them at once. The most efficient choice is not a constant: min-maxing a mage is different from min-maxing a technomancer who is different from a cyber/bio enhanced character.

But every min/maxed, say, manipulation mage will look the same on paper. Every specialist will have an optimal way of covering their base and an optimal way of acquiring a 2ndary skillset to go along with an optimal way of avoiding deficiencies. And so, you end up with your basic twinked out archetypes.

Still, even then, they only really look the same on paper. There are plenty of ways an imaginative person can get multiple characters out of the same stats/gear/skills.

But all of this is moot, since karmagen is better for people wanting to play games without having to resort to hyper-specialization..

Specialization is still superior in increasing cost systems. The reasons why specialization are better hold irrespective of how you do costs.

Let me clarify: I don't think min-maxing is somehow morally wrong. But I don't like it if I have to, in order to remain a useful part of the group, or to be able to gain spotlight.

I don't think spotlight is such an issue; that's mostly player personality and having any important skill others don't have. But the viability requirement - do you really need to optimise so much to remain viable?

As for specialization vs. generalization - that has a lot to do with the problems you face.

My new players mostly didn't take Unarmed Combat. Then they were in a bar with about thirty well-armed orcs; and they didn't want to turn a fistfight into a gunfight.

Stealth is another one; if a player can't be even a bit stealthy, they're locked out of a lot of options.

As a GM, you can set up challenges so generalism is also rewarded.

Specialization != Hyperspecialization.

that's pretty much the opposite of the point I was trying to make; saying 200 BP Attributes gives you thousands (order of magnitude) of ways to allocate your attribute score. that doesn't change the fact that a 'mechanically well built' character has 195-200BP in attributes. 250k in cash can be spent *even more* ways.


Karmagen actually has worse problems - it's just harder to make the comparisons since the 'buying power' of 1 point of karma is more fluid in terms of actual DP impact.


[edit]my proposed flaws demonstration is actually something of a generalist character: High attributes (through BP and augmentation), maxed edge, a large number of rank 4 skills in a wide variety of fields, and tons of cash to have the tools and toys to do those jobs; he's actually almost totally unspecialized.

The realistic DP caps are so low in SR that you can easily max out in a number of areas to start, karmagen or BP wise.