@Aerospider
The rules say contacts have a loyality and connection raiting. You are, by the rules, limited to connection 6. The connection raiting gives a hint about the "power" of the contact. If some policeofficer is 2, I guess a great dragon would be around 30 to 200.
Such connects are not allowed BY THE RULES.

Would I deny a 6/6 contact, because he could be too helpful? No, I would not. But making up a contact which should have 6/200 and giving it 6/6 but expecting 10/150 at least, well that is just breaking the rules.

Yes, a GM can make additional rules. But he should be able to write them down for players to follow.
It is not a Problem, if you are talking about destinct stuff out there. For example: Those spells or those weapons or those drugs do not exist in my game. No problem here.
But the second you force players to have generic builds: Your attributes have to be between 2 and 6, you may only have 3 attributes at 5 etc. it gets kind of creapy. The next problem is, that you would need to allow some of those rules to be broken by certain characters, opening the "he was allowed to, but I am not"-door.


So why even bother with BPs? Why not just make a character and the GM say "Aye" or "Nay"? Or he just makes some corrections and you can play it?

Except that most of the things he'll be unhappy with won't occur to him until the player comes up with it.


I agree, but it remains his prerogative. GM outranks RAW. Since he has to be responsible for the game he needs that authority. My qualms were with the notion that GM fiat is not acceptable in chargen, whereas I maintain it should be ever-present and executed wisely.


Because they provide a framework for balance (in theory at least). But you certainly could ignore them - plenty of games have no comparable element, though they tend to be narrative-focused.

It is not a question of "outranking", it is a question of "does it work".
If a character totally "correct" after the rules I gave out and not "silly" in any way.


Honestly: If the do not even balance the most simple things, like putting points in your attributes, then they do not provide any "framework".

The point is, there are a lot of things, which just balance each other out.
Foci are very expensive (in Karma). The only way to really get a powerfocus 4 is during chargen. Afterwards you would need to pay at least 4*8=32 Karma and 100k. Every other focus is too expensive for the benefit it grants. Having a focus of lower force does not help a bit, because they tend to be useless the second you hit BC.
On the other hand the game likes to include foci above force 6, seen in Street legents. Those foci, espacially sustaining foci, get very, very powerful.
For 16 Karma, 8 dice for any kind of reaction test...

But within such a situation, you always run into balance issues. And here the question is always: Whats too much?

For example you ban one player for doing his 1 in all attributes trick. What do you do about the player choosing latent awakening?

If you mean 'does it work for a GM to have carte blanche over what is and is not permissible for starting characters in his game' then yes, yes it does. The same way that he has the final say over everything else.


If you don't think there's balance in chargen then fine, but it's not the discussion at hand.

Just to lend some perspective to this subtopic, having been both a player and now acting as my own GM, I have always understood the reasoning behind GM fiat. In an abstracted game system, rules are there to give a certain sort of cohesion and guidance, but they always must bend to the ultimate rule - the rule of fun.

If I am running a Black Trenchcoat style game and one of my players comes to me with a Pink Mohawk character, I've clearly failed to communicate something to them and as GM it is then my responsibility to make up for that failure by sitting down with them and having a chat. I can't allow that character - at least, not without good reasons which I'll give them a chance to supply. "But it's legal by RAW!" isn't good enough in many cases.

Now, let's say the player in question knows the risks. Let's say they realize the extreme dangers their character faces by being a flashy Pink Mohawk in a Black Trenchcoat world. They have a plan for dealing with it, and while I have reservations I admit it could work. I then run it by the other players. If any of them doesn't like it, if any of them would have their fun ruined by it, it's pretty much dead right away. On the other hand, if everyone is cool with it and is willing to try it - perhaps with the caveat that Mr. Mohawk have a backup character ready in case he gets hunted down and fragged, and that the other players all get a single "Get Out Of @&#! Free Card" to use when Mohawk goes down in a blaze of glory - hey, this is so crazy it just might work!

At the same time, there are also compromises to be made, concessions to be offered. If, for example, the players all hate a specific rule, then we workshop a workaround, figure out either a reasonable houserule or a way to avoid having to deal with the unpopular rule to begin with. Or if no one wants to play a certain group role because of whatever reason - maybe none of these players enjoy being hackers, whatever - I of course am going to compensate by having hacking feature less prominently in the campaign and missions. It can go the other way, too. If I simply cannot stand a certain rule, I make my case to the players and we come to some agreement - even if that means they all want it and I therefor have to just put up with it. Or if one of the players wants to use a bizarre character concept, like a famous centaur pop diva or whatever, and it'd just be a headache to make it work, even if the other players want to allow it I might just have to nix it - either for the sake of my sanity, or for the sake of the campaign (the big bag has a weakness for horses, whatever).

Rules are good. They give a certain level of structure to what is otherwise a very abstract game. But they also sometimes need tweaked, ignored, or just plain broken. And if either the players or the GM fail to be flexible, it can quickly ruin fun for everyone to cling to the rules like gospel.

~Umi

Character Creation is a negotiation betweenthe Player and the GM. Both sides have to be willing to accept they mgiht not get everything they want.


CharGen has more GM Fiat than any other part of the game. And it should.



"No plan survives contact with the enemy".

So far I have four and a half pages of Houserules, a list of "which books we're allowed to use", and a list of "which Optional RAW we'll use". I expect that to grow by a page or two during CharGen, as I am presented with possibilities by nearly half a dozen creative minds other than my own. And by a further page or two during the coming year, as Season 4 Missions throw possibilities and ideas at all six of us, every month.

See, it doesn't have to be written down until the GM has made their decision.


The system already does this, in part: at CharGen, no more than one Skill at 6 or two skills at 5 - all the rest must be from 0 to 4. Extending that to attributes is no great shakes, either. You coudl easily declare "Only one hardcapped or two softcapped attributes, and no more than 2 attributes at racial minimum".


... why? The rule I just came up with, a sentence ago, can work just fine for everyone. Noone would need an exception, not that I can imagine.

Not really, the rest of the game is GM fiat only.
The Chargen has rules for every step...

There is a differance between not allowing everything and standing inside RAI and GM-Fiat.

In CharGen, GM Fiat is more important than ever - because mistakes and missteps there, will ripple out throughout the whole campaign.

Look at Umidori's post, where he describes being presented with a RAW-legal "Pink Mohawk" style character, despite intending to run a "Black Trenchcoats" style game. The character does not match the game. And there's no clear and simple rule to make ahead of time, that can define EXACTLY where the line between the two styles is.

Please post a new thread with this list. I want to see.

Irion, you really need to sort out your position. On the one hand, you claim that awakened characters grabbing 'ware to exploit the system cheaply is terribly wrong (you were the one to suggest a mage with 3 physical dumpstats at 1 raised by 'ware as broken), and then on the other hand you claim that exploiting the hell out of CharGen to make cardboard cutout 2 dimensional excuses for characters is a player's divine right. You cannot have it both ways.

For the record, in the homebrew CharGen house rules I use, I do limit players to either 1 1 and 1 2 or 3 2's, with all other attributes at 3 or above. So, on my table 2 1's or 3 1's would not fly as a rule, although if a player came to me with an interesting concept that required 2 1's I might make an exception (basically if I believed their reasons were concept driven rather than a min-max number crunching exercise). And no I would not ban a cyber adept or bio adept or even a cyber/bio adept - you are the one who seems to have problems with that, not me.

As for attributes of 1, I must admit that my thinking is partially a hangover back to the days of SR1 where 1 was considered abnormally low (i.e. physical or mental handicap). While this stigma has been largely deleted from the bright new world of SR4, it still applies to the extent that a character with an attribute of 1 cannot default on skills linked to that attribute.

You ask what the difference between an attribute of 3 and 1(3) is. Mechanically there is no difference in the dice the attribute contributes to the DP, but the difference is huge if you consider the character as a living breathing person rather than just a bunch of numbers scribbled down on a page. Until the character got the 'ware installed to bring the attribute up into the normal range, that low attribute would have had a huge influence on the character's development. If you stop to think about the ShadowRun dice mechanics, an attribute of 1 would be a crutch that negatively impacted that character pretty much on a daily basis, and as such it would probably have more of an impact on the character's early life than an attribute hard-capped at 6 (which would naturally also have had a huge impact). This is the difference between 3 and 1(3).

Double post, sorry.

Actually Irion, you are wrong about the Connection rating of contacts - according to RAW 6 (basically CEO-level or equivalent) is the maximum; the same goes for Loyalty, with 6 being a bestest friend who would do anything for you, I shudder to think what you would consider loyalty 10. So, as Aerospider facetiously pointed out, for 12BP you could theoretically take a great dragon or Damien Knight as a loyalty 6 contact, but should you do so? And if so, would the GM be wrong to say "I don't think so" and pull out the nerf bat?

There are all sorts of reasons why GM-approval of Char sheets help with the smooth running of the game world:
1) Does the character fit in the game setting?
As Umidori explained beautifully, a pink mohawk character would be like a fish out of water in a black trenchcoat game and vica versa.
2) Does the power level of the character fit with the rest of the group?
Big differences can lead to player frustration, especially in a group where veteran RPers and newbs are both present: the GM can persuade the former to dial it back a bit and help the latter make more optimised characters so everyone gets their share of the spotlight and scenarios the GM presents are challenging to all.
3) Does the character have a fatal flaw?
The Uncouth quality is a good example of this: the GM can warn the player of the pitfalls involved, so if the player does decide to take it anyway at least he will have been forewarned.
4) Has the character forgotten anything vital?
Skills such as Perception and Gymnastics/Dodge fit into this category, as does equipment such as commlinks and fake SINs.
5) Does the character "work" with his background?
For me as a GM, the internal logic of a character is paramount, and should fit in with the background the player has devised for the character. For example, a character with a military background should have at least Athletics 1 (to represent stamina-building training in the core) and no physical attributes at 1 (else he wouldn't have passed the physical to get in in the first place). A character with a background as an airline pilot shouldn't be colour-blind (as this would preclude him at the recruitment stage).
How did the character come by his restricted gear (be it Muscle Toner 4, Synaptic Booster 3 or Power Focus 4)? How did they get that skill at 6? The player should be able to give reasons why: there are any number of answers to these questions, but making the player think about them helps breathe life into their character and enrich their backstory.

@Midas

First of all an attribute of one is not really low. I guess I was down to one in all physical attributes at one time.

There is a lot, which could cause something like that.
Now you live in a world, where you can just fix something like that in a day, by transplanting muscle tissue. So, why not?
Your muscles probably won't grow, because you use "artificial" muscles. Or they would only grow a bit, but it would be a step from 1 to 2 not 3 to 4. Whatever.
Maybe if you get rid of those helpers, you will be back to 2.

And then one is not really a low attribute. We had some calculation on how much you probably can do on the beanchpress with one, and it is about 20-40kg. There are a lot of people in the real world getting by with that.


Quite simple: Due to the rules for essence loss, you are able to pay a fixed price for one point of ware. This is a broken mechanic, because the price depends on how you do it.
Quite the same reason, I do not like BP-Gen. You can make a character with 400BP worth about 400 Karma or worth about 600-800 Karma. Meaning the differance in "Power" can be quite significant.

Now, you may say, it is fair and you do not care. So now, why do you want to outlaw a character who does it?



Sorry, but 6 is not Lofwyr. It is not even the head of an AA. Even A would be a really require a very nice GM.
It is a mob boss. It is the maximum available for players, yes. Higher is not handled by the system.
So you are basically saying a mob boss can take on a great dragon and would have a fighting chance?


Same thing for the loyality. Friends for live is nice, but does not mean he follows the character no matter what.


Yeah, thats really hard. How to get a powerfocus? Really? It is restrcited, not even illegal.

So yes, you need to write a background...

Your wish is my command.

Power Focus 4 is Availability 20R. Which means, it requires the quality Restricted Gear to have it during CharGen.

A GM is entirely within their rights to ask a player to explain any and all qualities they select. And further, they are entirely within those rights to reject whatever explanation(s) the player submits.

I think he was referring to 20R and not 20F.

R/F isn't really relevant, though. They're equally easy to get (insanely).

There are the mechanical rules in the books. There are the social rules of gameplay or style the group agrees to. Character review and acceptance are part of the Social rules.

It still boggles my mind that you have to pay BP/Karma at chargen for CONTACTS. Who's bright idea was that? Why not just Charisma x2 for contact points?

… Because contacts are a resource? Are you boggled that you have to pay for gear? That's a common house rule, for practical reasons, but it's clear you should trade BP for resources, whatever their form.

So are Knowledge and Language skills, but the system provides free points towards those.

Hence why I give free points equal to [Charisma + Intuition + Etiquette] towards Contacts.

Agreed: it provides *some* free points; there's still a cost for more, and Samoth said any cost was crazy. (I personally like a 'starter' contacts house rule, anyway.)

However, it's also not a just comparison. Know/Lang are (at best) semi-useful, while contacts are powerful and vital.

Sure, but for min-max reasons you're going to spend either zero or 2 BP (a 1/1 contact) at chargen and then earn the rest through roleplay. It is an unnecessary hurdle for starting characters.

That's just unspeakable. First, I would never expect that to *work*. You shouldn't be just easily earning critical contacts, and the GM should be requiring contact use in a way that makes this 'tactic' a serious error (as serious as expecting to acquire all your gear via looting). Second, the GM shouldn't be allowing (because it's 100% his choice) this kind of gross minmaxing abuse. … Minmaxing abuse is not the expectation for normal people. Finally, if someone is minmaxing this hard, you're expecting them to earn anything through *roleplay*?

In no way is it a hurdle. Contacts are a critical part of your resources, and a critical part of your character/backstory.

Just compare to gear, and compare (as Pax did) to Know/Langs. Are these hurdles? If they are, is any part of chargen *not*?

I understand your point, but I am firmly in the "treat contacts like Know/Lang, not like Nuyen" stance. If you want to pay more BP/Karma above the free Chax2 points, be my guest (just like you can do for Know/Lang skills).

Personally if I could change one and only one rule in Shadowrun, that would probably be it.

I'm afraid I have to side with Yera, here. Avoiding people having too few Contact points to, IMO as GM, be functional as shadowrunners is why I give those free points:

Charisma x1, because your personality matters;
Etiquette x1, because your social skills matter too;
Intuition x1, because noticing when you're pushing your contact too far, or not doing enough for them, etc, is important. And also to be a bit different, while watering down Elf and Pixie pornomancer-face types a wee tiny bit.

Figure, if your typical Troll or Ork "street muscle" / "thug for hire" type has 2, 1, and 3 respectively, that's still enough for a C4/L2 or C3/L3 Fixer, if nothing else. .

That's fine with me, Samoth, because Know/Lang *do* have a cost. Still, I want to reiterate that Know/Lang tend to not matter at all, but Contacts (should) really matter.

In your opinion an attribute of 1 is not really low; in mine (which as I said hearkens back to SR1) it is. I don't think the book is all that specific on what constitutes an attribute of 1 or 2 so it could be that neither of us is wrong, just that our interpretation of the RAW is different. Can you give me a quote from SR4a to back up your claim?

Unfortunately I don't have my book to hand, but going from memory, the BBB talks about the average attribute for the population being 3, and I think it says that 2-4 are reasonably common. I think they give an example of 2 as a likely physical attribute for a desk jockey, which is the reason I set that as the benchmark for a couch potato (which I guess would be a 1 in your scale). We know from the description of the Reduce Attribute spell that a character cannot function with an attribute of 0, so I would argue a 1 must be pretty weak (or slow, or mentally slow, or oblivious or whatever).


For whatever reason I prefer BP Gen to Karma Gen, but I will admit that most of my Char Gen house rules are there to discourage excessive min-maxing and make believable characters. I have addressed my opinion on awakened characters taking 'ware above and do not feel the need to repeat it.


I will admit I would have a hard time approving a high loyalty Connection rating 6 contact (in fact I almost certainly wouldn't), but I feel you are low-balling Connection rating quite signifigantly. You are flat out wrong when you say that Connection rating has anything to do with combat prowess though. It is not even called "Power" or anything like that: the reason it is called Connection comes from the amount of information the person might know in a legwork roll, so a rich socialite who knows everybody and goes to every party going might concievably have a higher rating than a corp CEO.
As for Loyalty, I would not want it to go any higher than 6 anyway - contacts are people too, and a "follower" would be too much open to abuse to me.

I agree with this 100% ... I actually use a house rule that unless it is a business relationship (i.e. the contact always benefits financially from interacting with the runner), a PC has to "buy" contacts in-game with karma (pay the contact's Connection in karma and start with Loyalty 1).

AFB at present, but I think this is flawed by omitting the type of connection involved. The head of an AA knows a lot of people in a certain strata (stratum? Latin fail?) of society, not more people from all strata. In this way the 6-max system works - there is a limit because there are only so many hours in the day that can be spent maintaining it. A mob boss and a great dragon can both have rating 6 without being equivalent in utility - they speak to different sorts of people on different matters.

I second Yer's astonishment.
In my game, if you want to roleplay a Loyalty 6 contact up from 0 you better be in it for the loooooong haul or else perform some PC-NPC interaction of dazzling ingenuity and effort.

From the Book, SR4A, Page 67



Weak does not equal handicapped. There are Qualities to represent handicaps.
That said, I would not have a Character with a Rated 1 Attribute without good reason.

Thanks for providing the quote TJ.

Yes, you are right that negative qualities would cover handicap, I did say that that was the way it was way back in SR1 but not SR4, sorry if I did not make that clearer. But I think that table supports my position - couch potato (or its mental equivalent) should be more akin to 2 (Underdeveloped) than 1 (Weak).

@Midas
Sorry, but I have to disagree. It is even hard to put a couch patato to 1 and not below (handicap).
Why?
There are just 6(or 7) Points.
Humans can lift for example do up to 400 kg on the bench press. Now put this into points, so it follows the rules...
You can make the upper points take a bit more, but you will still end up with one having an quite "impressive" strength.

Speaking as a literal couch potato? A mix of 1's and 2's is good for that.

I'm getting a real laugh out of this... Midas doesn't like karma based (I don't but for other reasons related to the way they handle metas... if everyone was the same race human and using karma there isn't a problem with it). Then complains when players intentionally try and save karma later by min-maxing attributes.

Lets see... am I going to put a 5 into an attribute I KNOW I'll be raising eventually or stuff it at 4 just so I can raise a junk stat from 1->2 or will I put it at 5 and save 15 karma by raising that junk stat instead.

I absolutely hate BP gen because it encourages the worst kind of min-maxing and if you don't do it, you'll pay out the nose in karma later in inflated attribute costs. Much better that all the costs be in karma in the first place.

Apart from the fact I do prefer BP Gen to Karma Gen, I am not sure where you are getting this from. Please give the post number where I complained about people min-maxing.

About the only thing I said about min-maxing attributes before the discussion turned to "What is a 1 and what is a 2 in attributes" is that I wouldn't allow a mage with 3 1's in physical stats to fly at my table. The reason I gave for this (as I clearly stated) was that I run a clear set of homebrew Char Gen house-rules at my table to prevent my players from excessive min-maxing (excessive being the key word here, all my players do all min-max pretty much up to my house rule boundaries and I am absolutely fine with that).

Truth is that I too am a min-maxer at heart, so the reason I use Char Gen house rules is to prevent cardboard cutout characters with 5 5's and 3 1's in attributes and all skills at 6, 4 or 0. Under my house rules, characters will have a range of attributes and a wider range of skills, with some at 1 or 2 as well as 4's 5's and 6's, which I find leads to more realistic, well-balanced characters.

... so you have to pay out the nose in the first place? These two sentences are illogical. Also: what do you declare as "the worst kind of min-maxing?"

All Stats at either one below max, or 1; All skills at 4 (one at six) and nothing else, etc.

With Karmagen you don't feel like you're cheated by buying lower ranked skills.

That's not min/max=ing. That's just stupidity. It's begging the GM to make your dumb choices bite you in the ass at least three times every session. Hard. With long, pointy teeth. And no Bactine.


I don't feel cheated buying 1's, 2's, and 3's in BPgen.

You should because mathematically it is an inferior choice to do so.

Building a character is not just a matter of mathematics.

I'm a die-hard min/maxer. But you know what keeps me sane (and my characters reasonable) ...? I min/max for NOW, not ten or twenty sessions down the road. I make my characters the best they can be during the first run, not so that they will have been maximally efficient as of the thirtieth run.

Exactly Samoth... with karmagen you don't feel like you're being cheated with skills, or attributes, or equipment (binding a force 4 power focus for example is worth 32karma! but only 4BP in chargen which makes it really cheap even including the restricted gear quality).

Since costs are always the same whether you do them now or later... you never penalize yourself in karma costs later to advance say a skill group from 3->4 instead of just buying it at 4 in chargen, then advancing a new skill group from 0->1 in play later... (IE: Hacking skill group from 4, and not buy influence since it's cheaper to spend 10karma later to get influence 1. You save 10 karma by not having to pay 20 karma to raise hacking from 3->4 and starting with influence). (skill groups completely arbitrary... just used to illustrate).



I admit it, I'm bad at this because I absolutely hate being screwed in karma costs later (because advancement is SO DAMN SLOW in SR). Karma rewards are so small it takes multiple sessions to improve anything important. So generally on any new character the first 10-40 karma goes towards improving min's in the min-max... and picking up nice to have skills I ignored in chargen so I wasn't wasting BP by not raising skills straight to 4. (IE: I'll drop 6 karma on pilot ground (Wheeled), or similar things I really should have to make a well rounded character just so I'm not screwing myself over).



The ONLY thing I don't like about RAW karmagen is how they handle races and attributes (metas get higher point allows for attributes!), also the stuff special attributes under the same attribute cap as mundane attributes (BP gen allows more points for free).... Also it can be BADLY min/maxed through the metatype selection... penalties aren't really penalties and the 'lower costs' for humans also apply to metas... so you can go say ork... completely ignore body and strength and just dump everything into mental stats to build a better caster than a human who needs to spend karma to raise up body and strength to acceptable levels. (and since an ork is allowed to spend 40karma more than a human on attributes (this is ostensibly to allow the ork to buy up his 'strong' attributes which any powergamer will ignore and just leave where they start! but there is no requirement that I do so!)... this is a big deal when you're talking about say also tossing in and maximizing edge and magic scores).


I strongly feel that a troll should be able to raise his attributes to max just as easily as a human can while paying extra to raise his penalized attributes. The best way to do this is to simply have everyone to pay karma to raise their stats from 1->6 normally... then apply racial templates afterwards in the same way as cyberware attribute mods. (IE: troll pays 25karma to raise logic from 1->3 like a human... but troll modifier knocks it back down to 2 after mods. However, the trolls strength and body save monstrous amounts of karma in comparison to this). Then just charge a flat karma == race BP cost. Similarly if the troll wants to raise his strength later in play... treat him as if he were a human with muscle augment(4). Human going from 1(5) to 2(6) only pays 10karma... same goes for a troll treat the trolls metatype the same as the muscle augment.

I see the metatypes more as 'templates' to apply afterwards than starting points to start off of, and believe they work better as such.

Falconer, what you describe is actually pretty standard. There has even been an option for it in Damian's Character Generator, "Racial Attribute Easy Raise" for quite some time now. Also, Edge and Magic are not included in the cap (source: german errata'ed books). Furthermore, Race Cost = BP*2 is used commonly.

Just saying that you are going the right way, the same many people have been going for years. Your thought are all very valid

Yeah you can see my posts in the karmagen threads from years ago when RC first came out. My views have changed very little since then... glad to hear that Damian incorporated a lot of them in his character generator... I should probably hunt it down and play with it see how well it works.

It mostly just bothers me to no end that they let the fluffy author legions write the damn karmagen section and include things like rarity tax in the racial costs in RC. (wait it's not a tax it's a subsidy! as in they severely undercosted many of them). And then proceeded to completely screw up what should have been an easily rewritten karmagen section (at least to any crunch based grognard).

Seconded, it's time for SR 5 really. Hopefully they have learned from the past and let dumpshock have a glimpse on those rules before publishing.

Glimpse?!! I'd want a global proof-read before I shell out another edition's worth of cash!

No kidding -- I don't know why this kind of stuff isn't opened to the community before it gets written into law. So many potential problems would be solved before they ever hit the printer.

I, too, would hesitate to leap into another edition. I mean, it's still less than six months since I dropped $200 buying up the majority of 4th (in PDFs). 5th would have to be a significant improvement before Iwould even contemplate changing, now. (I would also have to wait until 5th's equivalents of Augmentation, Arsenal, and Street Magic were published.)






If they open EVERYthing to EVERYone ... then hardly anyone would buy those rules when they were published. They'd already have the preview copies, after all!

What might work instead, is, recruit proofreaders / reviewers from the community. Get them all to sign NDAs, and offer "comp copies" in return for fine-tooth-comb-ing each new book. Maybe even playtesting the rules/crunch portions with their home groups, too.

The edition is much older than that 6 months, though, so that's more of a personal coincidence.