thank you for providing the deconstruction to justify why other GMs under-utilize contacts...

20 BP worth of contacts should be as good as two extra points in logic, and if it isn't you may need to do something about it as the GM.

(I just picked a relatively low-utilization skill; substitute Parachuting, or any other skill, if you like.)

[edit]I realize you're probably not against the idea of contacts being useful, I just liked your summary of BP equivalency and wanted to restate it for contacts.

Again with assumptions here... it is not about "being shit" as you so eloquently stated, it is about fitting a concept... if I can fill a concept and still be rolling 8-12+ dice to accomplish something, then I do not need a higher skill than a 4... Check the equivalencies for skill ratings... I know that I rant about this from time to time, but a 4 is a Veteran rating... you have been doing this for years and years... you probably do not even think about the task anymore as it has become rote...

I will say it again... the DESIGNERS have established in the contect of the book that dice pools do not need to be above 12-14 Dice... Examine all of the Contacts, NPC's and Character Archtypes that they have provided, you will find very few with any DP above that... this establishes the general playability of the genre as tehy have envisoned it... can you get above that, SURE... but it is not necessary to do so to be good, or even exceptional. Hell, My hacker has most skills at 3... he is a PROFESSIONAL, and yet with a skill of only 2 still manages to throw 13 base dice for a firearms test with favored weapon (16 if Tacnet is active)... why do I need more than that to be Competent? I bet you cannot explain that can you? I have never seen him as incompetent OR underpowered, and many of the players seem to think that I am more powerful than I truly am, because of my dice pool... what difference would 3 dice make by taking my skill to a 5? Not much, a net gain of 1 solid hit on average...

Too many people make too much out of masive dice pools, the game is not about accumulating dice pools, it is about playing a role that makes sense, and I am sorry, there are only so many World Class (Insert Skill Name Here) characters out there, and apparently, if you listen to many of those on Dumpshock, it is the Player Characters that should be the ones with those levels of skills, and no one else... I do not agree with this in the least... If you want to play in a game where you are the undisputed masters of your skills, Shadowrun is not the game for you, try Feng Shui instead...

Now, I know not everyone agrees with this, and that is okay too... just don't pretend that what is implied and written in the books is irrelevant, it is not... Concept means more than Dice Pools, And in my belief, it always will, because without a coherent concept, you do not have a playable character...

Keep the Faith

@Alar - Yeah, that's cool - I'm always tempted to give people random skills like parachuting for free, or roll them up into something like 'is a commando' which covers all the skills like parachuting, scuba-ing etc.

More in general:

Not sure why you've giving me a lecture about DP sizes. It's fairly commonly agreed that starting characters need to be able to roll 12-15 DP in their schtick. If your face cannot roll 12-15 dice in the things he needs to do (fast talk people, shoot people, not get shot, etc) because he blew 40 BP on contacts or skills like 'parachuting' or knowledge skills like 'pottery', then you have a major issue that needs to be fixed.

If your player can make a meaningful contribution and gets a solid share of spotlight time and isn't overshadowed by someone else in his 'problem domain' you're fine.

It's when you consider that somehow having a concept is mutually exclusive from getting 400 BP of value out of 400 BP and unless you spend points on 'basket weaving' you're not a 'real roleplayer' that I think you've lost the plot.

well, part of it is the diminishing returns of larger pools; the larger pool tend to provide better consistency, but rarely will you find a task that you statistically speaking would achieve noticeably more with 14 dice as opposed to 12. (this has to do with most thresholds capping at 4.)

in opposed tests, every die matters, but the skills as printed on your sheet generally have less impact here because of the large number of situational modifiers that typically get thrown around in these situations.

the notable exceptions are soak tests - since the thresholds are not infrequently 5+

ultimately the problem is the balance between useful skills and an easily implemented BP system: in some games skills of varying utility actually cost varying amounts; in other games skills are of varying breadth. (e.g. B&E would be a single skill in such a system, but combat skills would be split out like they are in SR3)

Shadowrun has gone for ease of implementation, largely, and SR4 in particular has done some work in balancing weaker skills by rolling them into larger skill groups (which cost 10 regardless of how many skills are in them.) although the aforementioned lockpick and parachuting are two that are not part of skillgroups by RAW.


Personally, I think parachuting is under utilized in most games simply because it doesn't fit with the game concept (most notably street games) - although given that parachuting includes base-jumping I think an enterprising 'runner could find many ways to use the skill. Scuba on the other hand would generally confound me as a GM outside of a boat-pirate based game...

I have a dirty secret I pull out with new characters and contacts. I have a pile of roughly 40 pre-generated contacts that I let my players pick from if they dont want to make their own (and thus submit a short paragraph on them). It makes it easy for me to keep them all straight, and allows me as a GM to play them they way I think they should be played. Plus it makes the often hard work of picking a few contacts much faster.
Also, other runners make AMAZING contacts. By that I mean all those old, retired, , possibly dead, never-saw-time, and/or just thrown touther for fun PCs you all have get to have some new life as NPCs.
Just remember that while that social adept you rolled up has 20+ contacts, hes still a social adept and is going to be damm near impossible to get to lower his prices.

Yeah, lots of shadowrunners come from military backgrounds though, and as I'm always keen to enable characters that people want to play finding some way for the ex-military commando guy to get 'parachuting' on his sheet without crippling himself pointlessly is always a good idea in my opinion.

Btw: If you accept the BP equivelency thing, skill groups are overpriced, because the 10 points for the skill group is only worth it for

a) the first point where you get two effective dice for 10BP

B) once you've maxed out the stat

or

C) Long term games because you can arbitrage the karma advancement vs BP creation system.

Incidently, I think the other reason the skill doesn;t come up much is that only 1 guy has it, so you cannot make your escape route 'base jump out of the 55th flaw of the Aztechnology Pyramid after breeching a hole in the window' because while the Sammie might be able to, the hacker certainly cannot.

Not what I am saying here... I am saying that you do not have to frontload skills to have exceptional dice pools... if you agree that 12-15 dice in your schtick is enough, then we are in agreement... My point was that if you are there already, and do not need that level of skill, then there is no reason that 40 points of contacts is a bad choice, especially for the Face...

Also, Never forget that 400 BP value is in the eye of the creator of the concept... It may very well be valuable to me to have 40 points worth of contacts at character creation, and as long as I am not a drain to the team, then who is anyone to say that I was wrong?

In the end, it appears that we are in somewhat of an agreement over this, though I will admit that I tend to favor the Concept over the gotta have dice pools high idea... your character can always grow... but at our tabnle, you can never buy contacts after the game starts, you must earn them through roleplaying... so the contacts are a good investment where that extra dice or two in the pool can be added at a later date through Karma expenditures or through money (if it is something that can be augmented)... seems like an easy decision to me...

Keep the Faith

Yeah, look - you just need to get 40 points of value out of that 40 points, otherwise you're going to be overshadowed by other characters. I mean 40 points is enough to make the elven shaman into a semi comptent face in addition to whatever else it is he does, so you better get something bad ass out of those contacts.

Part of the problem with contacts - particularly contacts of people other than the face - is that people want the face to buy guns off 'Bobby the Arms dealer' but if he's the contact off Sam the Sammie, its a really weird look.

agree with all points, excepting situations where you have two or more skill groups you want linked to the same stat, at which point it is more cost effective to 'max'* the skill out first and then start buying skill groups. I think this mostly only comes up with Agility however and only for 'well-rounded' combat types who wants all melee and all ranged skills.**

We have had more than one game where the guys who could base-jump went out the side "door" while the face walked out the front although it helps that I've seen deckers who could 'chute (ork+1 parachuting is surprisingly effective with karma/edge for rerolling failures.) )

*max being to racial-1 since the 25 point premium for full racial outweighs even two skill groups..

**it could come up for logic too except that the two groups most wanted in logic are also the two groups that have the least number of tests that actually care about your logic score...


[edit]that said, skills in general are overpriced; as soon as you want two of them from the same linked stat you're better off stuffing points into attributes: this is probably the source of the 1/2 BP maximum in the current system.

Skills are much better priced at 3 per active/ 8 per group but it messes with the value of knowledge skills at that point (Which become overpriced) and make contacts look even less useful...

Discounting knowledge skills would logically be mandatory if you going to cut other skills - making them cost 1 is honestly, imho, entirely reasonable.

would you reduce the overall BP pool as well? I'm not sure if it'd be necessary but making deductions without adjustment to the overall pool will result in slightly more powerful runners on average.

I'd guess going to a BP total of about 380 would bring it close to the same line, while fixing the imbalance between attributes and skills; although the 1 Attribute point penalty kind of stings.

You're increasing skill caps so you're not making runners more powerful, just giving them more things they can do - so it would be a problem with a large party, but with a small one not so much.

I'd try and be proactive in player design to encourage people to keep out of each others schtick.

I'm not a fan of reducing the 200 BP limit on attributes, runners are already only 4 points above joe normal. I'd suggest keeping the limit at 200 no matter what you do.

I've actually never had a group smaller than 5 players (+GM) so that's pretty much omnipresent risk in my games if I ever had a group of only 3 or 2 players, I'd actually be tempted to give them extra BP, actually...

I was also under the impression that the average joe chummer in SR was 2s in most attributes; but that might just be me misremembering (I only play SR4; when I GM it's sr3.)

The table in SR4A indicates that an attribute of three is "typical" two is "underdeveloped" and 4 is "improved" so yes you are mistaken and the average joe is 3 in most attributes.

I do agree the system works much, much better when the average is 2.

I'm not sure why this became an argument about dicepools, since I just skimmed again (seriously, what it it with you people and walls of test?), but I'd like to say that 12-15 dice as a starting character sounds a little high. I think my first character was rolling 6-8 dice when he was shooting people, and he was a street sam. Maybe 10.

I don't think I've ever started out with a skill higher than 4, because it didn't make sense. A new character (or my new characters at least) isn't an old pro at this. S/he's someone who maybe has one or two runs under his/her belt before the game starts. If you're importing a character from an old game, or playing in a game where the characters have been in the business for a while, then it's a different story.

it fell into a 'value' of BP argument; since generally speaking most tables find the costs of contacts to be too high for the utility that they give in return. we had a tangent discussion of ways to think about what 2 5/5 contacts should be *worth* (about the same as Pistols 5, actually...) and that in turn led to discussion that skills and skill groups are overcosted as well.

in other words, attributes and cash are king and everything else is what you buy when you've maxed out those two.

Right then. I'll stick to my characters that are made for the story value, and leave the stat monsters to other people.

Ah... the story value is that the characters are simply that damn good, despite not being an old pro.

Perhaps he is a second generation runner having attended a shadow school.

This is dumb. Why do stats and stories have to be mutually exclusive? If they ARE mutually exclusive, why do you even play with rules at all? You should just magical tea party it.

If they are not mutually exculsive, what the hell are you talking about?

I'm talking about giving my characters stats and skills at levels that make sense for the character, instead of simply Min/Maxing, then tacking on the personality later.

Sure, but you're saying it's a trade off between being effective mechanically and concept. If that is the case, why even have rules? If there isn't a trade off between mechanics and concepts, is a non-sequiter

No, it's not a trade off. I think I'm just having problems expressing myself.

The characters I tend to make work both mechanically and conceptually. They're not as powerful as a Min/Maxed character, but I have more fun playing them. On the other hand, earlier a few people mentioned having characters that are rolling 12-15 dice for certain actions by spending points saved by not buying many contacts. 12-15 a bit high for starting characters, unless said character is someone who has a ton of experience in a certain area, which means that they're not new to the scene anyway.

By not getting contacts, which represent the people your character knows and has connections to, and spending the points instead on stats/skills/cyberware it seems to me like you're focusing too much on the dice, and not enough on your character's backstory. I'm not saying that you should focus solely on story, I'm saying that there has to be a balance.

I hope that explained things better.

How is spending money on the cyberware you had installed when you were in the military different from spending money on the contacts you had when you were in the military?

It's not. And when you make such a distinction, there's no problem. My problem is with the people who spend the money on the cyberware just for the bonuses they get, then tack on a generic "I wanted to be a merc" backstory that doesn't bother to explain they they have all these skills and gear.

And what is wrong with that? The mercenary backstory adequately addresses the reasons the character has the cyberware.

I gotta say.. sometimes people here tell you you're "wasting" BP if you buy something that's not as good as the min-maxed choice. If you're spending those BP on something you think is cool, then that accusation becomes annoying very quickly.

There's a balance between being good enough to have fun, and not having any BP left to buy stuff that flavors up your character.

Yes, sure; but the issue isn't that some skills (or contacts) may not be worth it; it's that *all* skills and contacts aren't worth it.

when the game system is literally beating you over the head for not putting the full 200BP into attributes then there's an issue with the game system; independent of whether or not min-maxed characters are to be encouraged or not.

When I (or anyone else) discusses tweaking build point numbers at our table; it's precisely because we feel the system punishes players for concept choices unnecessarily - the two most obvious are the character that take fewer than 195 BP in attributes or less than 250k in cash. (yes, even mages should be taking 250k. this is MESSED UP.*)


*it's BP optimal to buy skillwires at rating 4 and buy your skills (and in the case of mages, everyone else's) as skillsofts. yes, even for mages; you're getting the skills at half off, (8 BP for rating 4 versus 16 BP. even for skillgroups of 4 (32BP) it's cheaper (40BP). so assuming you're buying at least ~3 rating 4 skills this way you've made up for the 25BP premium for that last 'lost' magic point.)

personally I find that tragic; although even the proposed changes we hashed out here wouldn't fix that for non-mages. (it makes it tough on mages though; it's hard to have both enough skills and enough slots to make it worth the lost magic in all cases.)

When I say generic, I mean that there was absolutely no thought put into the "backstory".

@Jericho: Are you sure that we're playing the same game? I've gotten by just fine on ~190 put into Attributes, and I usually don't have enough BP left over to turn into 250k

The fact that there is a minimal backstory of being a mercenary indicates some thought. If there was absolutely no thought, the character wouldn't even be a mercenary. He could well be John Doe.

Either I'm failing at communication today, or you're just being difficult.

I'm not going to argue that characters are viable with BP spent in almost any manner that adds up to 400, alot of shadowrun has to do with edge and right place at the right time; as well as smart no-roll moves like taking cover and taking time to aim, etc.

cash is an absurd force multiplier though, for every concept - if I were to give a new player advice on building their character it would: 200(or 195) BP in attributes, 50BP cash, and buy skillwires and an image link/cybereyes. spend the rest however you like.*

But generally speaking the biggest bang for your buck is 200BP attributes, 75BP edge, 50BP cash, 105BP skills/qualities (or 75BP magic/resonance, 30BP skills/qualities) 35 negative qualities, 5 BP contacts (fixer: 1L, 4C)

the fact that that breakdown is "right" regardless of character concept is what bothers me; is all. [edit] I won't pretend that it's easy to fix, either, although adjusting skills and contacts costs downward by around 25% would make a big difference.


*with this advice you'd be hardpressed to build a character that was actually a liability, although misallocating all that cash would be one way to do it.

If it is such a minimal effort at backstory that you cannot abide it, then say so. But it is my experience that putting explanatory story skin to the min-maxed flesh and bone is sometimes harder than coming up with a concept story first.

In fact, I often find more flaws in character created with story-stat process than in stat-story characters.

Pfft. I guess we have different expectations of how powerful you need to be to be viable. If you try to keep up with the powergamers, then yes, spending like you propose is necessary. If.

I tend to start by coming up with a concept of what I'd like to play - looks, cool schticks, manners, background. Then I try to fill in the dots. I generally have to scrape things around a bit to get the BP to fit.

I expect other players to do something similar - or at least not powergame to the point where it becomes a problem. which takes some effort; player social skills have more influence on the power balance than stats in my experience.

Meanwhile, the GM observes that the characters aren't tooled for raw pure power, and breathes a sigh of relief; believable NPCs will be powerful enough to be interesting enemies.



Don't take this to mean that I disagree totally. Characters should have some minimal levels of competence, and contribute something useful. 30BP in contacts is a lot, true. But contacts can be very useful.

My current hacker for example:
3/3 Fixer - Have to get work.
2/4 Street Doc - I have quite some cyber. I want a go-to guy for maintenance.
3/2 Local Gang Boss - I have Low Lifestyle, and I'm not that tough. This is the guy I pay protection money to.
4/4 Seoulpa Ring Hacker - Someone to get new warez from as well as the inside scoop on syndicate activities.

All very useful people for me to know. We use the 2*CHA free contact points rule, but I'm still allocating quite some BP here.

So you're saying that people who want to play high powered characters that take on missions that span the globe and require operations against professional intelligence agencies in Tikrit, Vladivostok and London are bad people?

People who say "High numbers/Power gaming" = "Bad RP" are annoying. What's wrong with wanting to be james bond? I mean really.

Nothing, if that's what the campaigns are geared towards. However, I don't think I've encountered a game where the characters were the good starting out.

No, then you should consider more than 400BP. 400BP is positioned as "average" runners - still way better than security grunts or gangs. With BP to spare - or invest in things you think are interesting.

An important thing in setting up a game is coming to an agreement upfront about how big your DPs in your schtick should be - and going over is just as bad as going under.

Absolutes though don't help anyone. Playing guys from the wire isn't better or worse than playing guys from Thunderball.

I love how my critique of the system (and the proof of concept about how easy it is to demonstrate the flaws in said system) is always assumed to be somehow bad RP.

I'm not saying a damn thing about RP and I'd appreciate if people stopped assuming I was. a character built under the 'how to maximize your BP bang for your buck' guidelines I gave can very easily be built concept first.

joe average is only 4 attribute points behind my build guidelines, by the by.

[edit](I'm also one of the guys who defended 50+BP contact character concepts upthread) in case it needed repeating

And average runners do take on missions that span the globe and require operations against such organisations that have megacorporate equivalent backing.

I'm pretty sure james bond is a 400BP concept anyway; I mean really the man just has average stealth, high pistols (with specialty), low automatics, and stellar charisma / social group skills. pretty much everything else is average or less.

his biggest sticking point is fitting the luxury lifestyle in.

And the massive group contact of MI6, or whatever government organization it was that he worked for. It's been far too long since I've seen a Bond movie.

massive group contacts max out around 40BP iirc. really though he probably wouldn't have MI6 as a contact (just Q, M, and moneypenny.)

No, he is a commander which is a high lifestyle at most by pay - he just has an expenses tab for mission expenses

I understand the whole argument about min-maxed characters being flat. It's a TENDENCY, not a rule. There are plenty of characters that have been min-maxed and have a great roleplay aspect to them. That said, though, lots of min-maxed characters ARE kinda flat in terms of character since the dice pool came first, the character second. But really, it's all in how good a roleplayer you are. Some people can make a really memorable character out of anything.

When I was a player and not a GM I ran with lots of min-maxers and even a few D&D template stackers, while I always liked to play unusual concepts. I always stole the show, cause even though they were tripping dragons out of the sky, I was wearing it's baby's skull as a helmet, painted in green glowing phosphorescence paint, as I charge it with a halfling barbarian. Or the time I made a Shadowrun character inspired by the bike fights in FF7: Advent Children. My character learned very quickly that a meat arm swinging a sword at a stationary target while traveling on a bike at 120 an hour was not the best idea ever.

Some people just think being powerful makes a character interesting. Not true, good roleplaying makes them interesting. But some people took that idea too far and assume all powerful characters are made without any characterization at all, which is also not true.

Nah, I'm fairly certain that as a employee of MI6, he'd have them as a group contact, with the other three as high-loyalty contacts.

I'm pretty sure his *shoes* cost more than high lifestyles lately. (although the recent reboot he's certainly not luxury - he was surprised by the tailored suit in casino for instance.)

he's the perpetual rogue agent. I would concept MI6 as an enemy in addition to the group contact to offset the costs. (and for the amusement that would bring at the table.)

Not quite sure I agree - that implies the organisation has loyalty to him - but it is willing to hang the 00s out to burn as soon as it is convient (see whichever bond movie had Sean Bean in it) He a contract worker - they pay him a salary and he does some jobs. They provide the gear.

^ original reason I was going to only give him M, Q, and moneypenny - they actually show loyalty.