Not really... *shrug*

And whenever possession rules debates like this come up, I get the peculiar impression more often than not that people slamming possession especially brutally haven't read the possession clarification stuff in Digital Grimoire. Draco18's thing with possessed armor is specifically dealt with in DG, for example (though admittedly it would work better with military armor than other armor because of the Body x 3 limit for encumbrance with those).

Well, let's try to get this thread back on topic.

As for things to ban, I would stick with what most people here are saying and not hard-ban anything.

Do, however, take a good hard look at anything out of WAR! (especially MRSI software, doubly especially if the troll tries to apply it to his smartbow). Also take a hard look at any builds that rely on strange metavariants, SURGE, or going down to .01 Essence.

Personally, in my game, I tell people that they're only allowed to be Incompetant in 1 thing; Not because most people aren't bad at more than one thing, but because Incompetant (Automotive Mechanic), Incompetant (Aeronautic Mechanic) etc. was starting to really irritate me.


~R~

Why?

I can get down to .01 Essence with just the basic rulebook. All you need it some focus and an enterprising spirit.

Yeah, and that's part of the fun of a cyber character. I didn't say that there was anything wrong with it, just that the OP might want to take a good look at any such builds. After all, who's going to get down to .01 except someone trying to squeeze every possible (mechanical) benefit out of their 6 points of essence?


~R~

… Honestly, probably a new player. They'll grab a few high-Essence things, a couple tiny ones, and find themselves there. I really can't see any problem with how much/little Essence someone has, because the dangers depend on what they got.

::Shrug:: I'm just saying that .01Ess should warrant a look. If it's because they got two cyber arms and a couple other small things, you probably don't have a problem. But if they have Alpha Wired II, Muscle Toner 4, Reaction Enhancers 3, blah blah blah, and then a datajack just to tip the cyber/bio back to a favorable outcome you should maybe look a little closer.


I personally think that all hyper-specialized builds should be scrutinized to see if they're going to cause problems during gameplay, but I was just listing some things that might be warning signs of potential System Abuse. As always, YMMV, but nobody likes to see a poor abused system lying on the side of the road with NERAPH!!1! tagged on it's face in bring orange spray paint.




~R~

Bah 0.1 Essence
Noobs
try to beat the 0.02 of my Char "Cyb Ork"

with a boasting Dance
Medicineman

I would alter than to shotguns, heavy pistols and HMG - today's 12-gauge shotguns have a 18mm bore, .50 is 12.7mm and a .45 is about 11.5mm. Most MMG are in .30 (7.62), on par with light pistols in bullet size.

FFBA : The only effect it has is giving every player who knows about them a few more armor dice for free.
Emotitoys : Empathy Software can be fixed by a house-rule, emotitoys are easier to ban than to fix.
Electric weapons, especially dart tasers : more powerful than guns, legal and quite cheap. Either every criminal is carrying one or every person who might get in combat with a criminal wears insulated armor.

Wrong.

I would not ban spoofing life.

Spoofing life is not a positive quality so there are drawbacks.

Sooner or later some accountant will connect the dots and after about six months to a year certain actions can be traced back to the spoofer.

I would raise the risk the higher lifestyle of the character.

every Gerrman Player that either owns it or checks it
go to Korinthen

Hough!
Medicineman

I generally ban SnS ammo, though I have reintroduced it as a new ammo type that is rare, expensive, and not available for all weapon types. Gel rounds do stun damage just fine thank you.

That's true. But stay away from generalization, ok?

Not to rain on your dance (unless that's what you were dancing for?), I'm sure you'll note the 0 that you dropped. A tiny, insignificant number, zero, but important nonetheless.




Emphasis mine. (Sorry, I had to say it.)


With a wet dance.

~R~

Ok. Jup, Guess I did drop it ....
Gonna pick it up right now

He who dances in the Rain
Medicineman

Honestly, I wouldn't ban anything.

Yes there are certain things I dislike about the system, but I've always considered banning an absolute last resort, especially in Shadowrun where there are DOZENS of solutions to even the most stubborn player build. I guarantee there is no player build within the rules that is un-killable or that cant be killed without turning TPK.

If you have a particular player abusing an aspect of the game, quietly discourage that in a calm conversation with the player.

Have some faith in your players; just because something CAN be abused doesn't mean it WILL be abused and it isn't fair (or fun) to punish players for something they haven't even done yet.

As a side note, BAN TECHNOMANCERS!? GAAAAHHHH! NOOOOOO!

How is it easier to ban emotitoys when you can "fix" empathy software? They both function the same.

Also I should have been more specific, I noticed I left out the important part, I only require it for living targets. Possess the car, drone, statue, whatever all you want. I really tire of the way people fling the "You have never" around followed by casual references to something being silly or absurd. Try to be civil. I have had it happen, I have seen it abused, I have had the misfortune of playing with a power gamer, and GMing for one, so everything I can do to head off abuse before it happens saves a lot of arguing at the table. This one slipped by and that is why I enacted it, it was essentially a ban on free mind control.

We started playing our first campaign just weeks after the first SR4 core book came out and reading through it, the matrix was already overwhelming (and nowhere near as well-written as in the anniversary edition). I felt it added another dimension to an already hard to grasp ruleset, so I just made the call to say no TMs. I kind of introduced them as we played through Emergence, but my earlier ban combined with a lack of player desire has just kept them as plot device only.

So, really, it was timing and trying to reduce the amount of options to learn when we first started playing.

A software that captures non-verbal communication cues makes sense.
A software that analyzes them could be possible.
A character who spends several thousand nuyen for that software and has the skills to use it correctly should be able to get some bonuses on some rolls (mostly Judge Intention).

An emotitoy is a toy. It has the price range of a toy. A 6000 nuyens emotitoy won't happen (except maybe for a limited set for rich people). And there's no way a toy-priced object will be able to replicate the functions of a software that cost at the very least 1000 nuyen.
Seeing how that cheapest empathy software can't give less than 1 die, there's no reason for an emotitoy to give even 1 die of bonus.

And even if you could fix emotitoys, then you'd have a toy-priced object that gives some bonuses for social situations. A toy price isn't much to spend even if it's just for a +1 bonus, so it'd become something that it's absurd not to have, just like the smartlink. Except that it's a toy. Do you really want all runners to carry a toy to help them in social situations? I don't.

I think I'll adopt a strategy of considering most stuff from the sourcebooks as the domain of the GM, except for the Qualities and Lifestyles in the Companion, maybe, and restrict starting characters to the core-book (and the Companion Qualities/Lifestyles) only. This way I could introduce the sourcebook stuff gradually, and refrain from introducing certain items, and thus avoid both an information overload and the power creep.

Ban outright? IMO nothing, beyond THOR Shots and Nukes. Stuff like that simply don't belong in a standard type Shadowrun game IMO, and neither should it be something that players can get their hands on. You could argue about rating 7+ comlinks etc., but as long as you apply some common sense and make things hard enough to get, and let the consequences of using them be high enough, no items tend to cause any problems.

There are plenty of ways for creative players to abuse various rules, but IMO you should simply deal with those if they occur. Tell your players to try and build characters based on "Rules As (likely) Intended" rather than RAW. If a given combo or item seems imensely powerful, then it probably wasn't intended to be used in that way.

Personally I have a long list of house rules and tweaks, but very little is outright banned from the game.


/Kyrel

Well... My Cyberlogician had an Essence of 0.015 before he started trying to recover his Essence Holes though transgenic treatments. Long Story...

Unhinged (Unwired) and Running Cracked (Runner's Companion). Both are shit and break the system. Also anything with Jason Hardy listed as the line dev.

Two of the Best books out there... Just Wow...

While I wouldn't completely ban RC, I certainly take a very close look to characters using elements from it. There is a lot of potential for power creep in that book.

Unwired is actually pretty good. It has some issues, but the pirated software, and registerd stuff adds some money sinks into the otherwise cheap hacker.

Software Clusters are awesome. The Virus ideas are... intersting.

The Agent armies and the DDOS stuff is kinda meh.

I agree with limiting or preventing control thoughts and mind probe.
SnS going to shotguns OR not allowing net hits to increase the stun damage (or just capping it at half skill rating perhaps?) Given that they do decent S damage and only get half impact AND cause a -2 to all dice pools regardless of resisting the taser dance. For cost they are quite powerful.

Keep an eye on allowing the use of the restricted gear positive quality. Sometimes it's totally cool and allows a character to shine, other times it just allows a character to steam roll and steal glory from others. The rigger using it to soup up his car? Totally awesome. The gun bunny using it to make a burst fire barret? Not so much.

But most importantly make sure you're more aware of the rules than your players. It's very easy to take 2 or 3 interpretations to almost any rule in the book. So discuss it with your players for possible group decided interpretations on grey areas.

Generally, the only things I "ban" are SURGE and Infected. SURGE I will allow as long as we don't jump into the realm of the silly or excessive. Admittedly, I'm a relatively new GM to Shadowrun (about 8 monthes experience), its a basic thing. Infected I have a problem with just on concept, but one of the first groups I ran for Shadowrun had a player who insisted on playing something "not common, cause he's played every other race." He ran a vampire, and was promptly surprised when his street samurai infected (we'd determined that the implants were in place before infection, so Regen wasn't functioning to max output) couldn't deflect bullets.

Though admittedly, this is a player who played "that other game" and was treated to a DM there who firmly believed that it wasn't knowledge skills and background, but simply a title of a class that determined everything about you. Very frustrating.

Just as a point of curiosity, who would allow a player to show up to the char gen session and say, "I want the Amnesia (level 2) quality" and allow it?

I would. But my players know me well enough not to.

We allowed everything at chargen and only banned or house ruled things as they became a problem. So far the only bans are capsule and SnS ammo, because their damage potential is too high compared to the cost. IMO the game works as written for the most part, and you only need to ban thing that you specifically don't like. Asking others to tell you what those bits are is pointless.

I did it to my GM on Sunday. I was kinda poking around at a character and went, "Can I have amnesia? Level2?" And he just groaned out a "No."

I would allow Amnesia Level 2 if it was a very small party, of one or two players. To do it right just takes too much attention to one character for it to be fair for a larger party.

He wouldn't let me be a double agent either. Shucks.

Okay, I admit my response was a bit harsher than was strictly necessary. As I've stated before, I'm an ex-debater, and we're trained to make strong authoritative declarations. I appologize if I came off as rude.

As for your rulings, this rule is much more reasonable. I honestly can't say that I agree with it, but I can see where you're coming from and won't call it absurd. I would probably still play a possession mage even with this restriction because I love the feel and flavor so much.

Incidentally, do you also ban Control Thoughts?

Also, my condolences on the munchkin situation.

Edit:Spelling.

~R~

Really? I found the entire section in digital grimore an affirmation of why possesion should be banned. The notion that spirits of possesion traditions are just as easy to manage as spirits of other traditions is flatly disproven by having to have an entire section on "oh guys their totally balance because of binding material costs and a -4 dice modifier to posses dikoted katanas." You may feel otherwise but I stand by my statement again and again those who defend possesion most strenuously in it's current incarnation are the ones who are riding that power curve.

And completely ignore any evidence to the contrary? Like for example, this:




Just because a system has the potential to be broken, doesn't mean that no one can enjoy using said system without abusing it. If we're going to trim out everything that can be abused in SR, there goes the matrix, rigging, all mages, gun modifications, the BP/Karmagen system (because the priority system is much harder to min/max), any race not in the core book (and orks are pushing it). I could keep going, but I don't want to beat the point into the ground. The Shadowrun system has its flaws, yes, but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.


~R~

Adding Krav Maga. Not sure how it hasn't be mentioned in this thread already.

Not banned but modified: Any gun that contains a F accessory built in but is only rated R, should, in my opinion, be rated F. Examples: Morrissey Élan & HK-227X.

I've always looked a bit askance at any of the martial arts rules. Based on what styles/maneuvers the player wants to take, I have yet to need to hit any of it with the ban-hammer, but I have added it to the list of Things To Watch Out For.


~R~

He's referring to spending a measly 5 BP on Krav Maga to take aim as a free action or draw/ready weapon as a free action. It's definitely riding the line of cheesy.

Your evidence isn't as contrary as you think Raiki but i'm not going to pursue it further. Keep telling yourself that possession is balanced and fair with conjuring if it's what you must do. I would say the fact the game designers felt there needed to be a whole tract in Digital Grimore saying "yea guys it's really totally balanced, but here's a whole bunch of optional rules to pare it down" is fairly compelling evidence to the contrary.

Okay, I'm good with agreeing to disagree if you are. I really didn't mean to start an argument, as you're one of the posters on here that I have quite a bit of respect for. Good gaming, chummer.


~R~

I don't have a munchkin situation because I took control of it. I do not ban Control Thoughts because the resistance mechanism is much more equitable. My players get Shielding and a skill added to the mess instead of pure attributes. They have an even chance instead of the deck being stacked against them.

Fair enough, sounds like just different GMing styles to me. I don't like to hard-ban anything, I prefer to work out any potential problems/broken rules if/when they come up. Most of them don't make it past character creation.



Honestly, I was just curious if it was a dislike for mind control in general or if it was possession specifically. I've seen it both ways. And you should do whatever is best for your game, I'll do the same. It takes all kinds, even in the shadows.


~R~

Especially in the shadows

You guys complain about WAR! breaking the game, but RC, SR4A, and AU working in tandem will net you a chance to roll 41 dice with a sniper rifle (updated value). There isn't much to break after that.