Since you have a thing for the rules as written...

SR4A, p. 66, Humans: "Humans make up the statistical standard."

RAW 1 : You 0.

SR4A, p. 72, Humans: "Sixty years after the Awakening, humans are still seen as 'the norm' by laymen and scientific organizations, and are typically the measuring stick to which the other metatypes are compared."

RAW 2 : You 0.

SR4A, p. 81, Choosing Your Metatype: "Human characters are the norm in Shadowrun, so there is no BP cost for being a human. All other metatypes have a BP cost."

RAW 3 : You 0.

I do say, fighting fire with fire is quite fulfilling.

Yeah. This, a whole lot. I've played dwarves more than any other SR character type. To be fair, I typically GM though, so I don't honestly have that many PCs as comparison. But I'm a big fan of the short and surly people. And elves really are boring to me. Especially the idealized Tir Tairngire elves that seem to crop up too often in SR material.

How about a few examples?
I don't know how many times I have heard "I brush my hair back behind my ears."
"My character is speaking Elvish." "No he's not." "Yes he is, he's an Elf." "Almost nobody, including elves, can speak elvish." "(harrumph)" (SR1)
"What kind of character are you going to play, Dad?" "An Elf." "No, I mean what archetype?" "An Elf." "So is he awakened?" "He's an Elf."

Those are just some SR ones. D&D? The rulers of the largest kingdom in the realm? Half-elf, half-dragon assholes. Every godlike DMPC? An elf. Is it any wonder I took over GMing as soon as I was allowed? My Dad was a great gamer, except for that damn everything is better with elves attitude. Probably one of the reasons I love SR so much is that orks are good guys.

@ D2F and Dr. Funkenstein: I know I should stay out of it but you guys remind of some semantic debate I saw once.

"You turned right."
"I did not, I declined to turn left."
"That's the same thing!"
"No it's completely different!"

I don't mean to offend, I just had to chip in.

Statistical standard =/= baseline.
Also, that is not a rule.

Reality 1 : You 0


That's fluff, not a rule.

Reality 2 : You 0



Norm =/= baseline.

Reality 3 : You 0




I do say you are an immature little ass that sends insults via PM and blocks incoming PMs himself:




Very mature, I must say. Very mature.



No offense taken. He just jumped in here and tried to throw around semantics. If it weren't for his condescending attitude, I wouldn't mind. His argument has no impact on the numbers. At all. Whether you consider the +10 net gain from humans the base of your calculations (a personal choice, mind you) or whether you use the base values and the derived net gain from your metatype choice as the base of your calculation (a mathematical choice) is irrelevant. The difference remains the same. But obviously he had to pitch his own opinion in and declare himself the winner, while pitying the rest of us. Oh, how mercyful of him. Isn't he the epitome of Grace and mercy?

@Crash2029: You, My friend, Deserve the golden klondike bar award for the diffusion of that annoying and painfully pointless situation.

On the topic at hand..and not so hand. I typically hold onto the exact opposite mentality of Crash's father.
I personally have grown distasteful of elves...and drakes for that matter. Can't say much about that matter without insulting the my former teammates and players.

Dwarves seem to get no love from newcomers or people who don't have the inner determination or desire to play something outside of their norm. Personally, When playing a tabletop I take every available chance to go outside my norm. For example my current main npc, and part time pc, is a bio-luminescent aspected human summoner. Would have very well made him a troll..had the bp not been such a factor.

All this talk about Archetypes, and effectively racial profiling..only furthers my desire to want to play a low rate campaign. Numbers, unless negative, shouldn't influence a player's decision to play what they want.

Want to play a Troll Covert-ops specialist. Go for it.

As a Gm I'd make it known that it may not be the best choice..but all the more power to you if you can make it work.

EDIT: Seems I spoke to soon.

I don't mind drakes, mostly because I've never actually seen someone play one. Nor have I really had the urge to play one myself. They're just not that interesting to me; just a lamer version of other types of shapeshifters.


I'm the same way. I tend to play more unusual character concepts. A satyr street samurai, a wolf 'shifter face, a pixie gunslinger/pistolwhipper, a troll conjurer who communes with the fey folk, and a dwarven kickboxer are probably some of my favorite ones from the past. I really like doing that then making sure the concept comes to life in as a believable fashion as possible. Not a fan of the pink mohawk type games, despite my propensity for such oddballs.


What does that have to do with archetypes and pointing out common racial characteristics? An archetype is just a collection of skillsets and equipment common to people in a given occupation or field. Common racial characteristics certainly exist, too, even if not every memeber of the race shares them. If they didn't, people wouldn't really have any backing to those characteristics. Dwarves do tend to be gruff and surly, elves do tend to be haughty and look down their noses at others, and orks do tend towards violence and strong familial bonds. That certainly doesn't mean that there aren't tons of good natured dwarves, humble elves, or hippie orks who like living alone. It's just kind of weird when you meet one, or even describe one as such.

Hell, if you didn't stereotype, categorize, or make assumptions, you'd spend huge swathes of your life trying to figure out how to function in the world. If someone came up to you and put a gun in your face, you wouldn't realize that was probably a bad thing. You have to be able to assume that, categorizing him as a mugger. Stereotyping isn't the problem; it's people's reactions to stereotypes that leads to racism and profiling.


That's always the problem. As I said earlier, everyone min-maxes to one degree or another; no one wants to play a useless character. And, unfortunately, that's the result if you try to go too far outside the norms.

Ähhhmm...reaction is damaged.

..with dwarwen decreaced max. reaction, Wired Reflexes and Reaction Enchanters are your best friends..

And your capped at 7, and not 9.

Yes i love that stat when i create "My game is fight" characters.

And i normally play Orks / sometimes Trolls, woefully underrepresented around here .

Eh, I rarely put more than 4 points into Reaction even on my combat oriented characters. Unless you're also investing in Reaction Enhancers (something I don't think I've ever done even with quick-draw type PCs), a Reaction of 4(7) is more than sufficient for me and is obviously quite doable for a dwarf.

I've never seen a person create a dwarf character in my games. Ever. People just don't even consider them. I attribute that to aesthetics. This may change as players often go where the GM leads. My group are currently pursuing a dwarven Mafia woman and her accountant husband. Also in an upcoming game, the players are likely to encounter "the Baby Rabies", an all-dwarf street gang who use inline skates as their trade mark and have a penchant for killing people with rats. I believe all these dwarves will establish positive role-models for the players to emulate. Well, positive may be the wrong word, but it will at least put dwarves on their radar.

K.

I played a Korobukuru for a few sessions around 2000, but that is the only dwarf I'd ever seen anyone play.

I never saw anyone play an Ork, and only a few people play Trolls -- always as incredibly dumb bullet sponges.

Well, I guess people just have to get used to that x2 running multiplier for dwarves. It's called shadowrunning for a reason

Roller skates and jet propulsion. And smart-stilts. The days when they could bully you for being short are over.


I guess the problem with trolls is that they're not very impressive for anything else than buller-sponging or a handful of other (sick) combat niche roles. I mean, they can do a lot of other things, but they're rather expensive, and if their racial abilities aren't directly relevant..

If you want to talk about points, then Trolls make fairly good magicians. Oh, there's the caps to Logic and Charisma, but only one of them would ordinarily be your drain stat, so you lose a couple of dice, big deal! You lose a couple more if you're comparing augmented maximums, but it's not unfair to just compare natural stats. And in return you get a magician that doesn't have to agonize about spending lots of points on Physical attributes - you just pay your 40BP and you get more physical power than any human magician player would ever dare spend on non-core skills and attributes. Picking troll stops you from reaching the dizzy heights of maxed out magicness, but it makes for a good platform for well-rounded magicness. And all this goes double for adepts. Not to mention being able to target people with natural thermographic vision - that saves you a point of Magic gone to cybereyes, right there.

K.

My friends have been playing SR since 1st ed and except for the occassional Dwarf rigger and drone operator, no, though they make good NPC's. I think part of it is that for 'running' and 'climbing' into places dwarves are at a disadvantage. Someone yells "leg it" when the ballon goes up and you know you'll all be waiting at the van catching your breath waiting for Thorin to puff along. sure they might have endurance for the long haul but most of SR is the short sprint.

We've had a few trolls, usually sammies-some 'smart' one dumb as a post, but one player had a spectacular Troll Boar Shaman. He was limited in a firefight, but amazing in a bar brawl.

We've had a few eleves but it's Orks that have really been the other no go race. A couple but never popular.

Whoa, I made this post like...yesterday, and it's already on three pages. Plus, my GM (Navar) posted in it. Awesome.

To the quoted post, I play an orc every session. Ironically, it started from the classic urge to want to play something original in a group of human/elf trenchcoat wearing gunbunnies and it ultimately stuck. Sometimes people have to go out on a limb and try things. Maybe try to encourage your group to feel a bit risky and try new new things next time around?

On a funny note. We've had more shapeshifters and drakes than we have had dwarves.

If i ever were to play SR4, i'd do the ultimate mundane climber. maybe a bit less hard maxing, a bit more soft-maxing, if maxing at all.
Probably throw some broad-range skills in there as well.

I agree with a few good points above. In SR3, I almost always played Dwarf. In SR4, I almost always play Ork. It's just a question of the stats/BP numbers. I like high Reaction, and I like being able to ignore Body and Strength if necessary. If Dwarf was 20BP and Ork was 25BP, that might make a difference, but Orks also are human-sized, normal runners, and penalized in what can be dump stats.

Certainly if you play a magic character, or a face, or a technical type (not a hacker, though, because they don't even use Logic…), then another race might be better. Just me personally, I usually don't play those.

I haven't seen the Suitcase Rigger Archetype attempted with anything except a dwarf.

Funny, I think that's the only character type I've seen which is fully tied to a single race.

We did the pocket-samurai once.
A Troll threw a dwarf he carried around at an enemy.

Well sure you can say the same thing about any stat, it depends on the group etc. but really you(not actually you, but generic you) don't talk to your contacts? You don't sneak around? And heck even are you shooting someone is agility.
I mean yeah I am sure there are games where orc fighter guy stands around doing nothing until the shooting starts and I am sure body comes in really handy for those groups more than charisma does. But I still say agility and charisma cover your shadowrunning core skills, so its like +1 to +2 dice at everything you do outside of perception, specialized archtype skills (magic/etc.) and being shot. Okay I think everyone should also be able to drive, and have a decent reaction as well. Damn dwarves and there -1 to reaction cap.



Hey I am not a big Dwarf person but they are good in magic because you are not always a shaman or other charisma type.(heck orcs don't have to get a penalty to magic in soak if they have a influence based tradition, they don't exist in my world, but the rules disagree with me) And as for strength helping recoil, isn't that an optional rule and dwarves have the same bonus to strength as an orc i think. Still they take a hit to reaction which is huge and they are slow which is also huge which is why I normally wont play one.



Ouch, dude just ouch. Why don't you just put on your hood.



It is close enough for mage as well where I think the dwarf is generally fine especially since they get thermo over low light. I would not get eyes as a dwarf, but I'd probably get cyber eyes as a elf/orc/human. And while yes I'll use the rest of that .8 essence or whatever well as a elf, I'd rather have the 1 magic.


Especially in Karma build 1.0 racial cost 0, starting body and strength 5, don't waste any more points there, and while your max logic etc might not be awesomely, awesome you can get it high enough to be decent at soaking drain, while not slouching on agility, reaction etc.

under SR3, Dwarves were the only Race that you could get pretty much immune to magic by making them too stubborn to let anything have an effect on them.
Will-power 9 was easy. If you wanted to REALLY hardmax willpower, you could get it up to 12 i think. Yes, Attack of will done by a dwarf could actually be effective too i guess.
Also, Willpower factored into combat pool and initiative in SR3, so those got higer too. And they were not really slower, they just could not run as fast. They had an x2 instead of an x3 running multi, but they had no malus to their quickness score. Yes, Dwarves really got the short and ugly stick from SR3 to SR4.

Maybe I'm the weird one out here, but I come up with concepts. Histories. Then I use the points to get my char to fit the concept as best I can.

Sometimes it means I might be a point or two behind people. Some people might be better, but I more than make up with ROLEplay than ROLLplay. THe dice and dots are just a means for me to express my character concept and history.

I love Metahumanity. As stated before I can't remember -ever- playing a human in Shadow run.

I LOVE the Meta-variants. Now in the new game I love Changelings too. I 'am' human. If i'm playing an rpg I don't want to play my ugly ass self. I want to play something fun.

Trolls? Love um. Granted you gotta pick and choose. I think you don't see quite so many trolls played, largely due to some of the art in 1st or 2nd edition that gave them truely reflicted looking appearance. You can find some cool looking ones but alot of the art of the first two editions even humans and elves and stuff were covered in warts and stuff. Trolls 10 times more.

Orcs? Love um too. I probably play more orcs and trolls than anything. I'm a 6'3" 275lbs guy. I can 'get into' orc just fine. And again. The metavariants are awesome.

Elves... eh.. to a lesser extent. I think like a lot of folks here. I"m kinda burned out on elves. I'm not 18 any more I'm 32. THe "I wanna be pretty so everyone loves me" Urge is gone. I'm married with kids. I don't need to fuck anything that moves, (( or sits still)). I'd rather ROLE play. When I roleplay. I've played a few. Love the darkones with the fur. Kinda like the plant ones too though getting them into a modern game usually takes some stretches of history.

Dwarves? Just for me. I don't like being 'short'. I like the dwarves fine. But I won't lie. When I see them, I think about them with scottish accents and Brewfest riding rams. Just the mental image I have in my head. I think I played one once. A badass rigger. (( badass in play and smarts. not dots))


People just have to realize 'Dots aren't everything' Play what is FUN. Play what CHALLENGES you. Mini-maxing for point spread turns it into a number game. And .... that's too much like work.

Yeah, but i think one should not be penalized for roleplaying by the rollplaying aspect.

The only way to really avoid that is to remove all or at least most of the racial modifiers. But then you have the goofiness of a giant troll being just as strong and durable as a tiny little gnome.

*sigh*
how you do it, you're doing it wrong ._.

Quote for the win.

This is the reason behind the vast majority of my alterations to the rules set, & why I am literally unable to play several systems any longer.



I want my characters to be something I enjoy playing, and fit the concept as closely as possible. I also want them to be the best they can be mechanically (within the concept). I certainly do not enjoy the game if another character is just better, & most other players probably feel the same. For this reason, a game should be well balanced, which Shadowrun 4, while better than most systems & possessing an excellent core rules system, is not.


Some people tend to be under the assumption that roleplaying & variety are mutually exclusive from mechanical balance. This is quite false.

Why do you say that? If you choose a race that doesn't have the perks for a certain archetype/skillset that another race has, you're effectively penalized for making that roleplaying decision. The only way to avoid that completely is to get rid of the racial perks altogether.

If that's not what you're talking about, clarification would be nice. But as it stands, the best you can do is limit the penalties... but they're still penalties.

It's just . . in SR3, playing dwarves was only problematic because you were small and did not run as fast . . Basically, as long as you did not get into situations where you had to run, all you had to deal with was all of the little plays on words, small jokes, short gags and the such . .

I think the "core" metatypes are relatively balanced - they are very dissimilar, but they all have their roles and niches that they are best at. While not numerically identical, they work well in conjunction with each other.

Runner's Companion is where inter-metatype balance took a nosedive. Some of the options such as the infected characters, drakes, and such are so different that it is hard to really judge how balanced they are. But with the metavariants, some options are clearly superior to others.

Ogres cost the same as orks even though they get an additional positive quality (although "You can eat rancid garbage without getting sick" is a lame positive quality). Satyrs cost 5 more points, but come with satyr legs, which give some significant bonuses. Oni, however, cost 5 more points even though they come with a disadvantage compared to orks.

It is even more pronounced with the elven metavariants. Wakyambi cost 5 more points, but get improved reach and higher running speed for those 5 extra points. Xapiri Thepe, though, cost 10 more points and have to pick two frickin' allergies, in return for... photometabolism? Bah. And nigh ones get screwed over nearly as badly.

It doesn't matter as much to me, because I really don't get my heart set on playing this or that weird option - if the numbers for say, oni, look bad, I'll play one of the more optimal options. If a player wanted to play an oni, though, and complained about the cost, I would probably lower it to 20 to be fair.

If you use the karma creation system, there is basically no reason to not play a metaviariant since they are free. Throw in a superpower infected like a Ghoul (seriously, their stats are godlike) and you'll have a whole team of Fomori Busaw magicians before you know it.

Oh i dunno, if i look at trolls im not too sure. Sure i start with Con5 for free, but leveling to 9 is way more expensive than the BP system, but thats a special case ^^.

Your post is oddly D&Dish, but if your starting with a troll and your focus is body, you can easily start with the non-augmented cap and then fill it in with cyberware and play a "Wall". Really good oldschool archetype. You could also make a troll street sammy.

Or, you could piss off your GM and play a troll bow adept.

That's only if you use the un-errata version (although the errata is only in the German version at the moment). In revised Karmagen, you pay Karma equal to the race's BP. Also, even in original Karmagen, infected are treated as a quality, so you still have to pay for them.

I know infected cost Karma. The alternate metatypes are free, but even if you had to pay Karma equal to BP (35 or so?) it's trivial to the stat bonsues you get.

That is if you are not going to pump the stats you are getting stat bonuses in; the karma costs for those stats go up quite rapidly. On the other hand, the stats that take attribute hits, you'd quickly hit the caps.

A Fomori Ghoul starts with natural 10 Bod, 8 Str and I think 3 Reaction, not to mention the boost to Willpower and negatives in dumpstats Charisma and Logic. For a cost of less than 100 Karma you're not going to find that anywhere else...not to mention the free Arcane Arrester quality and ghoul powers.

And thats only useful if you play the weakest in existence. You are paying 45 Karma extra for every jump compared to a human. If you wanna hit softmax, thats 180 Karma for well a crazy concept, but not worth it in my eyes.

Now why does that sound D&Dish?

Just the way it was worded, is all.

The weakest Formori Ghoul is almost more powerful (10 bod, 8 str) than the strongest hard maxed human (9 str, 9 bod) on the planet, and that's base character creation stats with no modifiers.

Uhh yes, and any concept that buys itself a superstrong race and then skips ony maximising at all reeks of min/maxing taken a tad little bit too far.

In the BP system, it doesnt matter where someone puts points, in Karma its just so much cheaper to buy stuff thats low and skimp on the expensive stuff. Your Fomori infected is just that.

Uh, what? In the BP system, a Fomori Ghoul costs 80 BP and gets you Body 10/Strength 8. A Human at only Body 6/Strength 6 costs 130 BPs. Of course, the Fomori Ghoul has a maximum Charisma of 1(1), but that's beside the point. Yes, the Karma System makes this particular disparity even more noticeable, but the BP system hardly encourages you to max out your stats.

And are you really complaining about a system that encourages lower, more reasonable stats and well-rounded characters? Reeeeeaaally?

Right, and like I said earlier, make that Fomori Ghoul a Busaw alternate (mild allergy to Salt? oh heavens no) and get that normal +1/+1 troll armor right back for free.

Uhh what? No im complaining about someone min maxing, basically not leveling that cheat of a char in COn/Strength and upping the other stuff where its important and thus paying practically nothing for CON10.

Your definition of a well rounded character is interesting.

One definition of a rounded character would be to not have any major weaknesses or strengths.

Another is having a character who's not below average or crippled in several of their attributes, and has a wide array of competent skills. For example, runners without at least a couple of points in Perception, Athletics, Dodge, Stealth and Influence -- which is fairly common courtesy of the ridiculous prices the BP system charges -- are largely incompetent runners. Those are all "must have" skills for someone who makes a living in the shadows. Skills like Pilot Ground Craft should be much more common, too, yet you'll hardly ever see a non-rigger with it. The Karma system is far more lenient and allows you put a few points in all of those skills without severely hindering your ability to specialize.

Hell, I see people post so-called "Faces" here with either no or just one point in the Influence skill group solely because of how crazy the BP system is and how it forces people to use cheesy outs to bypass it. And all so they can instead spent points on more combaty-skills, where having a high rating means life-or-death. Or, in other words, they're all but forced to skip skills that are actually important and appropriate for their concept because the BP system penalizes them harshly if they don't.

The Karma system, however, allows players to create characters with skills and abilities appropriate to who and what they are. Not just the minimum ones required to define an archetype or specialized role. That, at least for me, is what well-rounded means. Not "jack-of-all-trades."

So what you're saying is it's not ok to leave some attributes at their base ratings, even if those ratings are superhuman 8s and 10s?

not everyone is going to be as good as everyone else at everything, that just doesn't happen, and I think its more balanced and realistic for not forcing everyone to be 'equal'

I try to put at least one point beyond the racial minimum into each Attribute, even if it is something like troll BOD. I just can't see a character who makes a living in a harsh social and/or physical environment not developing each of his Attributes at least a little bit. This would come simply from .... living.