I have to admit, you nearly lost me here. I was incredibly tempted to link a certain lovejournal community called Bad Roleplayers Suck, because there certainly ARE good and bad roleplayers out there.




I have played in a setting where this is the norm, and it actaully works out fantastically. It has a lot to do with the setting in question - because its a multi-gm environment, where anyone can basically run something within the loose guidelines of the settings. Social factors have made it incredibly cliquey (people tend to play with people they get along with) but the idea of consenting changes to a character being a basic rule does a lot to get players into a more detail-oriented style of play where they think about what is going on and react appropriately instead of Rollplaying all the time.
That being said, some players are better than others at playing realistically, especially in a fantasy setting.

Oh, there certainly are, but you are still going to have to give some criteria what makes a good and what makes a bad roleplayer. You can't just write in a rulebook "Reward good roleplaying", because that is just an empty, meaningless statement.




In a multi-GM, non-PvP environment I have had very rewarding experiences, and have myself probably done the best roleplaying I've ever done. (This was of course play by post, so you have more time to get into the character).

I don't see the problem. The GM knows good roleplaying, and rewards it.

Indeed... Kind of like that Supreme Court Judge and his definition of Pornography. You know it when you see it.

Yes, except much less ambiguous. The players also know good roleplaying. It would be unreasonable to provide a definition, and 'good roleplaying' is far from meaningless. If pressed, we could all certainly come up with a list/definition, but why?

Yes, for shame that we would expect a book that outlines how to play a ROLE PLAYING game would try and define Role Playing.

It does have a whole section explaining what an RPG is. And again, we all know. It's hardly "empty, meaningless", nor is there "no such thing as 'good' roleplaying".

Ok, you seriously haven't experienced enough bad GMs. If you had, you would know that there DOES need to be a definition. GMs that tell you how to play your character, for instance. That's NOT his business. Or GMs that always reward the table clown, because "oh, when his character does these crazy things that shouldn't work, it's funny and whacked, but if YOU DO, IT EVIL POWERGAMER, it totally won't fly AT ALL!" Or GMs that are biased towards a certain type of roleplaying. Or GMs that don't stand up to the table "actor", who can therefore hog ALL the fricken spotlight simply because he's a bit more outgoing than the rest. And yes, that guy might be totally playing his character well, but that's still not how things should work.

So, against all these things you DO definitely need definitions, and even better, rules. If there were, then everything would be natural and fair. And it's a damn shame that roleplaying games that are sold for hundreds of dollars provide SO LITTLE gaming/roleplaying theory. Fact is, they didn't even want to bother with it. And arguably you can say, hey, it's a thing that every gaming table should work out for themselves. But factually, you should then not mix rules and roleplaying at all.

And the GM is just a player, with admittedly more work. He isn't supposed to be the judge (in a well-designed game, which doesn't have roleplaying as a tacked on feature to a bunch of mechanics).

Sounds like they need a section explaining what a good GM is, then. I don't really see the relevance, though. You're saying that they need to spell out what good roleplaying is for the benefit of *crap* GMs? You're already screwed with a crap GM, regardless of any other factors.

Honestly, there don't need to be rewards for roleplaying, XP or otherwise. I agree.

On the other hand, see *my* Rule 0 above. There are players who play their characters wrong. Etc. The group can deal with it, naturally, and I don't think XP incentives are effective or desirable, but I understand why that 'rule' is there.

Brain, I never said you would be boxed in to a specific characterization. Wow, you really have had some shitty GM's to make you automatically jump to that conclusion. Your character should evolve over time. Hell, it's practically required in our games. We play some oWoD games, and you can't even advance unless your character grows (in our games anyway... in Mage we tie Arete advances to character growth, no amount of xp can raise it).

However, if you go from "Happy perky Sunny-Ork" to "evicerating a random bystander" in the same 5 minute span with no justifiable reason, you're not gonna be considered good roleplaying. Same in reverse: If you're a trigger-happy monster, suddenly giving a person a kind smile and a sucker is going to be very out of character.

Growth of a character generally happens slowly over time, just like with people. Also, just like with people, a major event, trauma, or revelation can spark a sudden and radical shift in a character's outlook and belief system. Reacting to the events in the game in a believable manner is the core of "good" roleplaying. Staying true to what the character is, letting that truth evolve, and keeping things as real as possible.

Yeah, consistency of character isn't really stasis, but a moving average. If you're way off your center mark, you're out of character. If you're reasonably close, but often erring to one side, your average is slowly shifting. Trauma or other major events, like Jhaiisiin mentions, will cause introspection and can shift it substantially. So your initial concept is never immutable.

One thing I always liked about Grimjack (yeah, I'm old). Every story brought growth in two directions. We learned what happened to him in the story and how it changed him and we learned what happened to him in the past and how that made him the person he became.

I have no problem with a character's backstory growing in the course of play, just as the things he encounters will also cause growth and changes.

Hah, I am positively scorched with bad GMing!

The damnedest thing is that usually I played my best characters with the worst GMs. Usually because they made their lives so unbelievably hard that I myself had to fight every inch of the way.

Hmmm... I don't find randomness to be necessarily conclusive of bad roleplaying. Destructive, usually, but... hey, you just forgot to mention that personality disorder in the backstory. Both consistently random and inconsistently random have a place.

Fact is, I don't like having to summarize a personality before play. Hell, I don't even know the guy I'm going to be playing, yet. Who knows what he'll do? I'll keep a rough image/outline to myself, but the rest of the table, including the GM (and maybe me), is just going to have to find out.



I think as a player I should have the choice of how, when, and how quickly to grow, or change. I don't need reasons, either, because mechanical psychology does not a good character make. People usually are quite different from what we want them to be, so realism isn't necessarily a goal. Now I'll grant you that generally the kind of people you have in mind probably won't have even thought about this much, but... I just want to keep the theoretical possibility open. Because it's MY character, and I can play him like I want to. He can snap without a reason, he can do stupid, inconsistent things, and I don't have to justify that in the least. I generally will find an explanation for myself, but that, too, is mine alone, because only I can look into that character's head.

IMHO, bad roleplaying just mostly happens when people metagame their decisions to get the most of certain mechanics, without thinking enough about believable reasons. But then believable is a very relative term again.

Humans are one of the most powerful groups in the game universe!

Especially when they got all their buddies together and put on the white robes and pointy hoods.

You mean the druids?

The midgets that almost crushed Stonehenge at the Spinal Tap concert?

Brain, I think you're kinda missing the point.

First of all: Yes, bad GM's exist, we all know that. Hell, back in the 80's, I was one of the worst. I didn't really come along until Shadowrun first came out. Not coincidentally, that's when I learned how to roleplay.

Second, if you as the player are deciding what the character is doing, something is amiss. When you're truly into roleplaying, the *character* will start making decisions and you'll be along for the ride. This doesn't happen automatically, as other people have attested, but characters do grow and evolve over time. It's happened to me many times: I as the player will say my character is doing something, while my mind is going: "What the hell? Where did that come from?"

Now, no one has the right to force your character to grow or develop. I really don't like the idea that you could be judged or ranked or advanced based on that, because many of a character's changes are internal. That's why I'd never play in the oWoD game previously mentioned. But if you're truly into your character, he should grow on his own.

Not a cool comparison. There's plenty of assholes in EVERY race. Just because the KKK is the most famous doesn't make them unique.

Quoted For Truth...

Nothing unique, but Humanity Policlub is the most powerfull organization of it's kind in the sixth world.

.....oO(the KKK ain't the most famous.....there's this Bunch with the "upside-Down buddhist Sign of Life"....I think They're even more famous....)

with a "not-so-famous" Dance
Medicineman

Yeah, the Nazi's are more famous, but still the KKK are evil enough that if they could pull a Hitler, they would do it in a heart beat.

And yet, Westboro Baptist Church is nasty enough to be denounced as evil by the KKK. To say nothing of other supremacist organizations of every race and nearly every religion under the sun, each just about as vile as the others.

Can we not go down the "X real-life thingy is more famous/evil than Y" path?

It never ends well. Ever.




-k

Unless you count "getting a thread locked for talking about politics" as "ending well."

I put on my robe and wizard hat...

*Sighs*

The Humanis Policlub, people? I *WAS* keeping things in-universe.

Huh... The Humanis Policlub Members wear White robes and White Pointy Hats? Who Knew?

Cain, the Arete stat is overly powerful in oWoD mage. It's the only stat whose power can grow exponentially. Keeping it contained proved to be a necessity to prevent power gaming and keep characters well rounded and growing. In a decade of gaming, no one has raised issue with it, and it's been fantastically useful. But each table rules their game differently. I'm sorry the limitation of one single stat would turn you off the game so quickly.

oWOD was pretty unbalanced all around, and while each game had its own internal power balance, cross-game balance was non-existent. Even nWOD didn't take away Mage's OP endgame, though they raised the risk significantly and made the path more expensive, thus slower. But we're not here to bicker and argue about who in WOD was most overpowerful. This is supposed to be a happy occasion, where we bicker and argue about who in Shadowrun is more OP!!

By some artwork humanis looks very KKK inspired which is odd but then again it's supposed to make them easily identified as the bad guys I guess.

I did atleast

SR1A (1989) Pg 168- Humanis Politiclub Member contact. Certainly looks like a white pointy hood, but it could be grey, clear plastic, or maybe someone pulled Patrick Star's (Spongebob's friend) pantyhose over his head. Hard to tell. I kind of like the idea that it's Patrick's pantyhose.

This is true. It can be overpowered. One thing I neglected to mention. While we tie Arete to character development, we *don't* charge any xp cost for it. All Arete increases are free after character generation in our games.

I played Mage extensively, I do recall how powerful it was. But what I don't like is tying its advancement to visible character "growth". Not all characters "grow", some regress over time. That's character development too, but it's not the kind you usually like to see. In the same vein, many characters only grow internally, never showing much development on the outside. It's not fair to restrict their growth, simply because they're not making visible changes.

Also, character growth is highly subjective. How much character growth is required to advance? What ends up happening is what I've seen too much of in oWoD LARPs: Character advancement is tied to what the GM likes to see, and not what's actually happening. In many of those games, the Storyteller's friends got more XP for roleplay than others, because they're the ones he interacted with the most. It is blatantly unfair to say: "Your character grew and changed, so you become exponentially more powerful" and then turn around and say: "I don't care how cool your internal monologues are, I didn't see it, so you don't advance."

Okay, LARP's are the devil. NEVER EVER EVER worth the nonesense they cause. (Sorry, bad experiences, and those are a class of geeks even I don't understand)

Lemme take our discussions to PM. We're really staying off topic in here.

Awww but i like mage discussions, it makes me all nostalgic. For the record our group also didn't boost Arete with experience but when the storyteller felt you had grown enough in your understanding of the arts. Ditto with Scion and legend.

I would point out that Shadowrun LARPS tend to be very very different than what you might have encountered in WoD stuff.





-k

I've played in a few different LARPs, including one post-apoc/cyberpunkish one. We used either birdseed packets or nerf guns to represent firearms. I was basically playing a street samurai, heavily chromed and carrying a big gun. The big nerf blaster I carried had a pump action and an electronic motor, that made a huge racket whenever it whirred to life. Intimidating as all hell. I named it the Vindicator minigun, after the Shadowrun weapon.

We actually brought a lot of Shadowrun ideas into that game. You could get cybereyes, with "smartlinks": I can't remember what they were called, but they meant that you did more damage on a successful hit. Full cyber bodies were possible, but uncommon. The game didn't last for more than a year, which was a pity. I've thought about adapting the rules and adding more Shadowrun elements, but it's never been worth the effort.

And to bring things back on topic: humans were actually one of the more powerful races available. Instead of getting a special ability, you got 10 extra points to build your character with, and had no particular costuming requirements. Those 10 points didn't count against your advancement, so you were always more capable than someone else of an equal level.

I'd try a Shadowrun LARP but I seriously think the police might have issues if I were to load up a van with machine guns all over it...

EDIT: There's also that whole "I don't have a full driver's license" thing, too...

It's a really cool idea, but I think we're dragging this thread off topic. I'll start another one.

Back onto topic, do people *still* think humans are underpowered? With Edge 6 for cheap, and Edge 8 possible, have I convinced everyone that humans are a competitive choice?

It's not that humans aren't a competitive choice, but that humans with edge below 6 aren't a competitive choice. I tend to think that's bad; it's odd that human PCs are all some flavor of Mr. Lucky.

Dwarves and Elves have similar problems, but not as pronounced; Dwarves with less than 6 willpower and Elves with less than 6 agility and less than 6 charisma are similarly not competitive. Orks and Trolls don't have this problem because they give you a larger amount of stats for free.

You play a race to its advantages. In my current game, there's a troll, and elf, and three humans. The humans include an Otaku, a rigger, and a mage. They're all very good at what they do, and other races couldn't do their job noticeably better. The troll is the tank, pure and simple, and I don't think any other race would be better suited for that. But the elf mystic adept has serious issues: he's not good enough in melee to compete with the troll, and he's not good enough at magic to compete with the mage. I'm probably going to allow him to rewrite and go pure adept, since that's the side he uses more. He's pretty good as an infiltrator, but he took Uncouth, so he can't talk his way into a building.

Overall? The humans are doing much better. None of them have an Edge above 4, and they keep up just fine. Ironically, it's the elf, supposedly the best race for combat, that has the most difficult time with it.

Humans stats should not start at 1. Since they are supposed to be average, they should have at least 3 everywhere so that the other races' penalties are real penalties and not just lower maxmima to stats you were going to dump anyway.

So you mean to say that humans should get 160BP worth of stats for free, yeah that wouldn't be unbalanced at all

I believe he said everyone should start with stats at three, and then have modifiers applied. Of course, that would mean adjusting the amount of BP as well.

My point is that edge < 6 is, in fact, not playing human to its advantages.

With regard to the elf - I did say elves have similar issues; an Uncouth elf is certainly not playing to the strengths of Elf. It's also quite easy to make a sucky mystic adept. You can certainly make an effective elf mystic adept, but it's very, very easy to not do so.

Can you post the Ability Scores of the three humans? What stream does the Technomancer follow? What Tradition is the mage?

I think humans have sufficient advantages to make them a good choice for some characters - enough characters to be alright.

1) You're not paying for stuff you're not using, like a high Strength, or low-light/thermographic cision that you'd replace with cybereyes, or Charisma if you're going to play an antisocial twerp anyway.
2) You don't have any annoyingly low Attribute caps.
3) A "normal" vibe - it matters to some people.
4) Less racism than the other races get.
5) Edge

There's very few things a human can't play. Blending in better with mundane society is useful to human faces. Riggers and Hackers aren't paying for meatbag Attributes they don't use. And for Logic/Intuition mages, the value you get out of metatypes is pretty small too.

Okay, humans suck as tanks. But you gotta wonder if tanking is really what you should be doing in SR; it means 1) people actually see you, 2) they have time to shoot at you before you drop them.

In the other roles, metas can squeeze 1-3 dice more out of their Attributes, but on a 16+ dice pool, that's not enough to make humans unplayable.

I don't control their character sheets, and it doesn't really matter. The otaku is straight out of the base book, no paragon streams; the mage is a homebrewed Intuition-based tradition. Since he's a combat mage, going Intuition based was a good choice, since it also factors into your initiative. The rigger can compete with the troll because he can hide in his cocoon, and use heavy weapons. The mage can drop the troll with a single spell; the troll's player dumpstatted all his mental stats except intuition. The otaku is a sprite summoner build, with all the nastiness that entails.

What matters is, they're all effective at what they do, and other races couldn't do noticeably better. Sure, an elf gets that Charisma bonus; but it doesn't help the mage that much, since he's Intuition based. An elf otaku would be interesting, but again, the charisma bonus wouldn't help all that much. As for the rigger, charisma doesn't really apply to him that often. Trolls and orks get higher Body and Strength, but that's not useful for a mage, otaku, or rigger. You may as well save the points and put them into other stuff, like Magic, Resonance, and gear.

If you're playing a concept that relies on a high body or strength, orks and trolls win, hands down. But when you're looking at non-physical concepts, humans become much more attractive. Seriously, think about it: how good would a troll be as a rigger? Or worse, an otaku? He'd suck at it, because of the limits on his mental stats. Humans have no advantages, but they have no penalties either. Even orks aren't any better than humans at mental stats. Elves and dwarves do get bonuses, but they're not as useful as you might think, depending on the build you're going for.

I'm not about to debate Schroedinger's Human. If you want to post some actual character sheets that are humans with <6 edge that you think are (a) effective characters and (b) would not be better off as a metatype, please do.