I am new gamemaster (for SR, but with years of xp in d20 systems:) ) and I have started recently my first SR game and I have two questions.

First, about Incompetent negative quality. First time my players took one or two of them, but i guess probably next time they will take seven Incompetent qualities on less-used skills (such as Nautical Mechanics, Pilot Aerospace, Pilot-Exotic vehicle (air balloon), etc.). Is this how it can/should be? Would you allow it in your games?

I can house-rule-out this quality, but I am quite conservative about using house rules in the system I do not have experience in. I am loooking for an answer in range 'Yes, you are right, Incompetent quality should not be house ruled to be taken only once'; 'No, you are wrong, there is stated somewhere in rules that disallow such abuse'; or "Eh, roll with it, negative qualities are simply meant to give more BPs".


Second, about Logic. Our in-house hacker asks does he actually needs Logic at all. He has purchased variety of programs and does hacking rolling checks of Program+Skill. Logic doesn't come into play at all?


Thanks for answers.

I wouldn't allow a character to take that quality unless it was something that they might just encounter. Incompetence (First Aid) or something of the like.

I don't know what the rules say off the top of my head, but I wouldn't allow it to be taken more than twice, either.

I always go by the HERO phrase, "if it doesn't disadvantage the character, it's not a disadvantage".

If they take disadvantages relevant to skills they wouldn't take otherwise, give them no benefit - after all, they can't be incompetent in a skill they're not using.
Or make them take skill levels in the skill that they're incompetent in, since they must have the skill for them to be incompetent in it [which will probably cancel out any points gained for the disadvantage].

Incompetence:
I wouldn't allow Incompetence for any skill that you can't test when unskilled, like Pilot Aerospace. I've also disallowed it to people who were unlikely to ever ever ever need the skill, like Blades for the Unarmed Combat specialist.
Negative qualities are supposed to hurt; that's why they're worth BP. Otherwise you could just as well give some free additional BP, if you (really) feel 400 isn't enough. (It makes you quite a head taller than the common man already.)

Logic in rules as written isn't that important, no. It's used in Logic+Programming and Hardware to upgrade your programs and commlink, but you can outsource that.
Should you let him start with a low logic? I wouldn't - I'd tell the player he was a dirty powergamer.



BP-based games always allow some sort of powergaming, ridiculous optimization of stats. Unlike class/level based systems, there are generally less restrictions on how you spend them; it's up to the GM to say "no, you can't do that, it just doesn't make sense."

I'm not sure you can - not having points in the skill is one of the effects of Incompetence.


I've allowed Thrown Weapons and First Aid; both things people are likely to want to do.

If it isn't a Disadvantage you get no Points.
1 or maybe 2 Incompetences are ok,but if a Player would abuse it,Iwould get my rolled-up Newspaper and whack his Fingers !

@Sinner 667
its not possible in SR4 to take a Skill in which you're incompetent (It doesn't make sense anyhow )

HougH!
Medicineman

And even the slightest disadvantage is a disadvantage.

So to the OP, I'd say, 'Yes, you are right, Incompetent quality should not be house ruled to be taken only once' and "Eh, roll with it, negative qualities are simply meant to give more BPs". There are already restrictions as to what you can take Incompetence for and there are rules for having Incompetence - use them.

For the hacker, I do not see why he is required to have high Logic if the player can have an explanation for it. If he doesn't want to be able to create his own programs and upgrade his own commlink himself, then he has to pay someone else to do it for him, there are consequences for low Logic and if it is acceptable to the player, I see no point in forcing him to take higher Logic.

IIRC, the more Incompetence you have, the worse your Notoriety and that mostly adversely affects your Social interactions. And having low Logic means less free points for Knowledge skills and I think you can use Knowledge skill points for Languages (according to published material, certain Languages are not available as softs) and Language skills serve a cap on certain Social interactions as well. For example, a low Logic hacker with multiple Incompetences is a bad idea, he can't make his own programs but his rep is imposing a penalty when he tries to buy those progs.

Ok, thanks for the answers regarding Incompetent. It is clearer for me. Still, I am not planning to do much empasizing on negative qualities (more game time for other activities), so maybe a fine start for house rule "No Incompetent quality for skills that you cannot default on", i.e., if you cannot default on skill (Variety of exotic stuff) you ain't gonna use it anyway, right?


So Logic used by hacker mostly to programming. Page 225 of the corebook (under Electronic warfare) says "When dealing hands-on with communication technology, make tests using Electronic Warfare + Logic", but it is hard to think of situation when hacker would access other node with hands on not through his commlink...


And then I got another question related to Logic and coding. Top notch program costs 20k, but it is not that hard for hacker to break the code and pirate the program. Can he then sell unlimited copies of it? Or even a copy to each contact. And give copied top programs to each team member?? It is definitely realistic, but it seems cheap...

Otherwise, Incompetence: Eye Laser, Monowhip, Oceanfloor Crawler Pilot and a few others begin to sound interesting..
If you don't want to focus time on negative qualities, then let people take things that have a clear game effect that'll actually happen (make them earn the points), but that doesn't require you to focus on them (like Enemies).

Has anyone else had the situation where everyone but the Face treats social stats as total dump stats, expecting to hide behind the Face, and hoping that the people the Face talks to don't realize who he represents?
Maybe the Notoriety of all people in a team (and perhaps their Street Cred) should weigh in the test when they're being represented. ("Yeah, you are charming, but you represent Doc Incompetent...")



Yeah, you don't use Logic all that much.



The system is definitely flawed in this regard.

You might find this thread relevant.

Bad link

Here's my theory: if someone picks say, Incompetence: Submarine Piloting, what that player is really saying is, "If at some point in my character's career I am not locked, alone in the cockpit of an out of control submarine, then we have all simply failed as gamers." I would go as far to say the more unlikely the skill is to come up, the more disastrous it should be when it does.

Good link

I read through it, but it is based basically on discussion about Unwired [book]. I don't have it and I am sure that in the nearest future me and players are not yet ready to tackle all the supplements (balancing issues). And I am not thinking about hacker bying pirated software, but pirating himself. So it can degrade, mmkei.

Maybe he cannot break the code once, but (it somehow randomly generates again for each copy) he has to break it again and again for each team member and for each sales?

Actually, in SR4, it's the outher way around, like in Savage Worlds: Without taking NQs, you won't get a halfway decent character at all. 400BP is designed to be that way, just look at the archetypes.

Agreed. All Qualities (Positive or Negative) are about trade-offs and some trades are better than others. Negative Qualities do not always have to hurt, and similarly Positive Qualities do not always have to help.

Your players are treating their qualities as a number value. This should be strongly discouraged.

A quality is an integral part of a character. A Negative Quality represents their personal failings and flaws.
An Incompetence flaw means that there is something which every living human being should be able to comprehend and attempt, but, for some reason, the character in question will never be able to understand it or do it.
Therefore, it is up to the player to explain to you why his character can not grasp these basic concepts. What is wrong with this guy that he can't figure out how to throw something across the room or can't seem to wrap his head around the concept of a joystick. If he can't reasonably explain why this is, tell him to turn around and fix his sheet. And, if he can't roleplay his reasoning, let him know that he's sacrificing future Karma by trying to pick up something which will hurt his ability to remain in character.

Another thing to consider is that every Incompetence flaw adds a point of Notoriety. Taking 7 incompetence flaws means that the character would have to be functionally retarded to the point that he was a well-known joke. Feel free to make your players aware of that as well.

Actually, that makes him very intimidating by RAW.

Even "Defaulting: No" isn't quite a good way to filter incompetencies... having a Magician with any Incompetency in a Magical Skill is quite a drawback.

It's called Aspected Magician. -3 + -4 (not having the skill and not being aspected for it) means a -7 dice pool modifier on a dice pool of just Magic. You'd need magic 8 to have one die.

No, it's not.

Having Sorcery, Counterspelling, the Conjuring Group, but Incompetency Ritual Spell Casting is quite different.

Defaulting is -1 - just you can't default on Magic Skills.

"He doesn't seem to want to talk. What say we pull his fingernails out?"
"Hey! I've got an idea! I say we let Mongo have him!"
"Mongo! Hell, that's too cruel! I like it!"

....Where'd I come up with -3?

*Blames previous post on his sleep cycle, or lack thereof*

Besides the ridiculous rule that an incompetence makes the character intimidating (at the GMs discretion) there is the other thing about reputation: each incompetence gives -1 to all other social skills if the NPC is aware of the character's shortcomings. That's -7 for an incompetence-maxed character. I'm not sure if that is such a good idea.

I think it should also reflect on the rest of the group; they're considered weird for even associating with the incompetent fool. At some point your extreme notoriety isn't just your own problem anymore. It should definitely influence fee negotiations with Johnsons.

That's a really depressing way to look at it. It's fairly doable to start without NQs and still be better than the average ganger. It's a bit like being a generalist: you sacrifice some specialization but get caught flatfooted less often too.

No...

..this is.

I am new to SR4/4A GM as well, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I see my SR setting that I want to have fun with as improvisational futuristic and magical Fallout Series + Grand Theft Auto Series. If I am not throwing all kinds of weird yet strangely familiar my players way, I am doing something wrong.

1)Incompetence: Other than skills that can't be defaulted in, I would totally allow it. Then later on by some weird happen stance it is going to come up, just like any of their defaults will. Sure they have team mates to try to go super sayan, but that is kinda the point, other times others shine while others go down hard, all fights are quick and one sided or something is going wrong. Incompetence just says to me someone wants to be the comedic sidekick at that moment rather than the cool super anti-hero.

2)Logic for Hacker: Only if they want to be an original and top of the hacker game, which is pretty useful for a runner. Otherwise they are reliant on their Contacts and that leaves it pretty much totally in the GM's control. Contact gets a cold, needs a favor, gets kidnapped (or a family member), gets killed, gets an addiction and so on. Then they better hope they have social skills to build new Contacts or they are hooped.

Hope that helps.

It's not really a RULE at my table, per say, but we don't really exceed 35bp bonus from negative qualities. This is mostly because of how I GM: I require it actually be a detriment to the character and I play them up a bit. If the TM takes Incompetent[Disguise] he better know at some point I'm going to put him into a few situations where he could have easily succeed in his role had he just been able to disguise himself. Instead he'll have to think of a more difficult (and perhaps dangerous) alternative.

The 35bp thing is kinda just an understood thing that the characters will likely become a hindrance to the rest of the group given how I often use them.

Isn't the max 35 RAW?

Yeah, it is. RAW also suggests not allowing people to break this because it can create overly powerful characters.

Edit: Oh, and since I haven't chimed in yet, I figured I'd throw in my opinion that I personally either take skills that will in fact be noticeable on my character or I just don't bother with them. For instance my mage character might take incompetence (Ritual spellcasting) because she has a very unique view of magic and so has trouble meshing with others. Or maybe she has some really deep sharing issues

However I wouldn't try and take incompetence in hacking, because it'd be pointless. Kinda like how they don't allow you to take codeblock for hacking actions if you aren't a hacker. (Though it is interesting to note that a disadvantage that gives a small penalty to a part of the hacking skill is worth the same amount of BP as not being able to hack at all ever)

Edit2: That kinda makes me think that developers intended it to be used on never-used skills. It is after all a rather small number of BP for having skill completely barred to you forever.

I thought that max was only applied to positive qualities. My bad.

Nope, goes to both. Basically the 35 points of negative qualities are there to balance out the 35 points of positive qualities that you'll want to get.

Not really. You can spend the points to be a mage and not take any negative qualities. Or you can be Uncouth and not take anyu posative qualities, dumping all the points into (say) combat skills. But either way, you are limited to 35 points of each.

Yes, I know you can take one without the other, I was just saying that I figured the intent of limiting both to the same number was generally so that they would balance each other out. Not a requirement, but kind of a suggestion from the devs.

It worked that way with SR3's merits and flaws, because the original system didn't have build points, so you HAD to take flaws to get merits. Qualities do seem like an outgrowth of Merits and Flaws, but the BP system removes that limitation. I'd expect (as SR4 develops more as its own game rather than a "new edition") to see Qualities used in ways that move more and more away from the "take the good with the bad" paradigm. That, or directly requires it (such as the various Metatrait Qualities).

A hacker bangs code. A script kiddie uses other people's code to artificially inflate his ePeen. Without logic, the character isn't a hacker, he's just a skiddie. If he wants to play a hacker, he needs the logic. If he wants to play a skiddie, make sure that he knows it's his shameful secret amongst his peers (who are likely to be secret skiddies as well. )

In the mean time, EuroShadow, look into program degradation. All cracked programs and illegal programs like hacking softs are supposed to degrade by one level per month to reflect the constantly developing state of software. (Personally I like to randomize degradation and keep track of it in secret.) If your guy can't write patches or work out his own hacks then his kit is going to fall behind and lose its effectiveness between runs. Of course he can get around this by having a cadre of coms loaded with Agents all coding on his behalf using Autosofts, but he doesn't have to know that. It's sort of rule abuse anyway.

Actually you only earn a single point of Notoriety no matter how many times you take Incompetent...

You earn 1 Point for each Negative Quality, and lose one point for each Positive Quality... so 1 for the Incompetent Quality, 1 for the Addiction Quality, etc...

See Text in SR4A under Notoriety: "Note that a character should never earn a Notoriety point for something he has already earned a Notoriety point for, unless he has somehow gone about it in an innovative way."

At least that is how we run it... we never earn additional points for the same thing... unless of course we have been extremely creative in how we go about it...

Keep the Faith

I'd imagine that particularly notorious acts should circumvent the rules as well. For instance, if you make a habit of strapping a bomb to a kitten and letting it run up to the sec guard to be petted, then your noterity will likely go up more than a single point for doing it multiple times (Or go up alot the first time you do it)

Of course what earns how much noterity has a fair bit of personal view attached to it, no matter how objectively you try and look at it.

This view (that hackers bang out code, ans script kiddies use other peoples code) would be reasoanble if writing code could accomplish anything on the scale of the game.
It is possible to write an interesting hacking program in 1.5 months, if you throw money and tools at it (you have to rent time on a development environment to half the interval.) That's one program.
So, in practice, unless the Gm lets you declare that all your programs are self-written, you just are not going to have very many programs that are code you banged out. The system is structured so that everyone has to be a script-kiddie.

Given that, I just figure there can't be much social stigma to being a script kiddie. Particularly since, in practice, your code does not work any better than someone else's. So why not use his.

The one case where, for a long running game, the ability to write code may matter is if the gm is willing to let you write programs of higher rating tahn six. If you can write a rating 12, optimize 6 stealth or exploit program, you have something useful. But you better have a game with ploenty of time and reasonable amounts of money (nothing like what cybered sammies need, but it will cut into your drone budget noticeably.)


Yours,
Joel

Aaaaand now I want to play a character based of the siege scene in Wanted.

I don't know, time is relative I guess... been playing a cyberlogician for just over 220 Karma now (almost 2 years in game), and I have 7 Self-Programmed Programs... one which is a Rating 7 Agent, and another (which I just finished) which is a rating 10 Stealth (Optimized 4) to go along with my Rating 10 Encryption (optimized 4)... those 3 being the highest rating ones I have programmed, the others are variations of Rating 6 Programs with some pretty interesting Options... You can do it, but yes, you will need some time and a GM that plans to run a long term campaign... for short run games, they are not really a viable option...

Keep the Faith

Sure, everyone starts out using other people's work, but after enough patches, you're going to end up with a unique program based on the original's source. Meanwhile, on the creation front, a unique program is a hot commodity, since it would presumably be using an unpublished, previously undiscovered exploit. If you can't do either of these things, you're not a Hacker, and you won't be able to join a Crew (who presumably shares their own do-not-distribute programs amongst themselves and writes hacker softs for sale to the guys who aren't in their click.) That's the real Grail here. If your char can join a Hacker Crew, you've got the option of putting in work in order to get the payout of expert-level tools. But, if you can't code, then you're going to be shelling out cash every couple of months to keep you in the game.

So Incompetence(Skill 1), Incompetence(Skill 2) etc. are each one quality, as such each adds one point of notoriety.

This only talks about gaining additional notoriety during gameplay. Additionally being worhtless at areospace mechanics is different from being inept at navigation, so the above condition does not even apply.

A script kiddie would be one that uses an agent/mook to hack, instead of doing it himself. Without logic, the character is still a hacker, it is not how good a program you can write, it is how well you can use it.

Actually, I wish there was more code-banging. I like the idea of the hacker pounding out a super-hot one shot program for a run.

Programs customized to attack specific systems would have been interesting. After all, your Aztechnoogy Exploit code isn't likely to work so well when you try to get past the Aztechnology firewall...

QFT. Also, the Incompetence quality generates a point of Notoriety each time its bought [If they argue its only applied once to Notoriety let them apply it once to how much BP it generates].
Make sure their Johnsons pay less and have less respect for the team due to their Notoriety. To do so think like this: While Notoriety is a penalty on social skills instead use it as teamwork modifier against the team for social tests. (Either hindering them or aiding the Johnson/Opposition, the mechanics work the same either way.)

Lastly, never be afraid if told you are deviating from the book with something like 'make something for roleplay not numbercrunching and I wont need to.'

People tend to forget it is Shadowrun is an RPG, a roleplaying game. It is a game and when you make a character, you make it for gaming and when you play an RPG, you are gaming first.

Don't be afraid to throw it right back in your GM's face. If he tells you to make something for roleplay, tell him this is a game and by god, you are going to game the roleplay.

Those who tell you to roleplay the game are simply missing the point of playing in a roleplaying game. It is a game and thus you game.

Fixed.

(At the end of the day the GM has to enforce the kind of game he wants to run and find players who will enjoy it. A game that is no fun to run isn't going to be run very long. There is nothing wrong with mathematical number crunchers when the GM wants that style of game but it WILL exclude those that want lots of in-depth roleplay as artificial characters are brought to the table and roleplaying elements ignored for the convenience of a few BP. Having a game with in-depth roleplay and modest numbercrunching wont disrupt either style of play and in my mind that makes modest number crunching more considerate to the GM and other players.)

Fixed.

Spell design too, for the same reason.

I was looking at the spell design rules and had an idea for a physical manipulation spell:

Extended test (16, 3 mo.)

THREE MONTHS!? Doesn't even matter how many dice I throw at it, there's no way the game my GM is starting up is going to last three months worth of downtime.