second! We can haz exposition?

I'm not sure the humans are underpowered. Personally, I think the orc (and the troll) is simply broken. For 20 points of race and 200 points of attributes you get 250 points of attributes AND free low light vision. With 250 points of attributes, you can put the points into your specialty and still not have a dump stat.

If you have a use for strength (either melee or athletics) and you're willing to take the charisma limitation of 3, then for 20 more points, you can take troll and get 30 ore points of attributes, +1 reach, +1 armor, and upgrade that low light to thermographic. The one downside is that, unlike orcs, you need to get your gear fitted. (And personally, I like 4 charisma, so I tend to go with the orc...)

When a game designer is handing out 30 points to play an orc and bumping up the attribute limit by 25% at the same time, they're really encouraging you to go orc.

I find that in build points, I will often be tempted to "go ork", because it is a lean char-gen system where getting a net 20 build points (50 in bonuses, -20 cost to be an ork and -10 losing a point of Edge) is tempting - and I find that happening more for well-rounded builds (detectives, covert ops specialists, etc.) than specialist ones. Also, a lot of times I want decent Attributes all around, rather than good physical or mental Attributes, and 200 points is, frankly, not quite enough. If there was one tweak I would make to humans under BP, it would be to let them spend up to 220, rather than 200, points on Attributes.

In Karmagen (yes, using the German errata), it seems like humans have more of a niche. When I pick a metatype, I usually boost the stats that they get a bonus on, and in Karmagen, that is actually more expensive. Combined with the cost of the metatype itself, I find that my humans actually save points, which translates either to a higher Edge score, or significantly more breadth of skill or contacts. It's funny, because Karmagen gets reviled a lot for being too metatype-friendly, but I like humans in Karmagen a lot better than humans in BP.

The player's roleplaying skill is not dependent on the character's stats. But the roleplaying of the character however may well lie with the character's stats.

If the game does not have any social stats/dicepools, then there is no limits to how the player wants to roleplay his character. But if there are social stats/dicepools, then is it good roleplaying to "roleplay well" a (stats-wise) socially inept character or vice versa?


Unless the player finds not having a challenge fun. In most situations, a maximum dice pool ensures that most of the time, you succeed. Generally speaking, you do not always succeed even with a maximum dice pool. You only ensure that your chances of failure to be minimal, unless you do not roll dice or have loaded dice (perhaps not even then), you cannot always succeed.

orks... their cap for logic and charisma is lowered by 1 each, thats 10 points of negative quality there and low light vision is a 5 pt positive quality, and edge is 1 less than human, so its more like 15 free points instead of 30. but yes, its unbalanced. most metahumans are unbalanced one way or another.

the Ogre metavarient is even more unbalanced, adding the ogre stomach for no additional cost.

Generally, lowering the maximum in an Attribute is a 5-point flaw, while raising it by one is a 20 point positive quality. But that is when they are taken individually by a player, who presumably takes the flaw for a less-used Attribute, and the positive quality for an Attribute that is important to the character concept.

Metahumans, by contrast, are a package deal. You get a net 20 points for being an ork, and a net 30 for being a troll, but they are not a straight-up bonus - you have points that basically have to be assigned to certain Attributes. Similarly, elves are the only metatype with a net loss compared to humans, but for certain builds, it is worth it for the boost to two of the more important Attributes.

Despite giving 10 points less in bonuses, and not giving advantages such as +1 reach or dermal armor, I consider orks slightly more optimal than trolls. A Body of 4 and Strength of 3 are things that are useful even for non-combatant types, while a troll's Body and Strength of 5 are a bit much if you are not playing a combat type. Plus, orks don't have as many disadvantages - their mental penalties are milder, to the point that they flat out won't even come into play for some builds. They aren't conspicuously large, don't need gear specially made for them, and they are not penalized in one of the most important Attributes (Agility).

Ogres and satyrs are also good choices, being a bit better numbers-wise at the expense of being more conspicuous. Oni, however, are puzzling (I will note that the 25 point cost of oni can often be as inflammatory as Ares Viper Slivergun threads in SR3). I would probably house rule them to either cost 20 points, or cost the 25 points but have the crunch match the fluff, and give them a +2 bonus to intimidation.

I don't think it's really metahumans, just Orcs.

Trolls and Elves are fairly expensive and have very defined nitches: Trolls go Sam/Adept and Elves go Face/Charisma-based mage/techno. You can build them outside of that but it really isn't optimal.

Dwarves are fairly underwhelming. You don't really use them for physical builds (Ork and Troll are generally better for that) and the +1 Willpower is nice for mages/technos but it's not that impressive, You're basically paying 5 BP for to increase your max Willpower by 1 and to get 3 strength which is fairly pointless. So for intuition or logic-based mages/technos they're probably a good choice but even that is fairly niche.

Orks are just a great steal for the points. They can do everything but face and they're a little suboptimal for mage/technos (Intuition generally being a weak tradition because it's hard to boost).

Ok, I have to jump on this, I apologise in advance:

Roleplaying and Rolling literally have nothing to do with one another. You cannot solve a mechanical problem with roleplaying, because roleplaying should never allow conflict resolution. Basically roleplaying just decides what conflicts you are going to end up with, because you roleplay what your character does, and what kind of tasks he wants to undertake, and what kind of trouble he ends up in. And then you need mechanics to resolve those conflicts. If you are doing anything else you're in GM-fiat land, or in "I always win" land.

And this is from a guy who played diceless freeform roleplaying for years. But guess what, it's a game without conflicts, because you literally always win, unless you want to lose. And if two PCs end up fighting each other you often end up in a flame war, because there is no satisfactory way of resolving conflicts.

Basically it's perfectly fine to have minimalist mechanics: Toss a coin, and either you or I win. But you need at least that.

For Orks and Trolls, I mentally insert "And due to racism, you'll usually be at -4 dice for social rolls." Elves and dwarves would veer towards -2, because that racism isn't quite as severe.


The only real issue for me is the 50%BP->Attributes thing; that makes Orks/Elves/Dwarves useful, because you were generally going to buy those Attributes anyway, but now they don't count towards the limit.

I like the "Humans can buy 220BP of Attributes" variant, but you might also:
* Include Edge in the Attribute Limit
* Put Race Costs in the Attribute Limit

-4 dice for social roles with whom? I have to assume you mean with humans because if you're telling me orcs are racist against other orcs, I'm really going to need an explanation. And I don't think elves are getting a -2 in the Tir...

The problem with racism is that it goes both ways. If the orcs are -4 against the humans, the humans are going to end up being -4 against the orcs. Orcs can be racist too. In a campaign like Seattle that amount of racism can cripple the human character (no Orc Underground for you!).

Humans aren't 'broken' so long as you're not just mini/maxing. You play what you want, what character you want to connect to. Beyond that humans are the most common and therefore meet the fewest prejudices, the world is made for them. Trolls and dwarves should be paying extra to have gear altered for them.

Well, you could make the relevance of the subgroups proportionate to the BP advantage to even out spotlight distribution. In this example, the main source of information would come from human friendly groups, with only occasional contributions from the orc underground.

-4 is a bit severe, especially if it's a blanket modifier.

'Prejudiced' confers a -2 penalty and 'Hostile' still only confers -3. -4 is only one point below a personal enemy.

Having all humans (and dwarves and elves?) be more than hostile towards goblinoids throws up a lot of questions. Like, why aren't there constant race-riots in every metropolis? Goblinoids have been around for decades – I haven't done the maths, but I'm pretty sure the ork populace must have achieved 4th generation by now, if not higher.

The exact amount of Racism Modifier isn't really the point. What I'm trying to say is that as long as you don't assign some sort of mechanical value to it, it's easy to claim "Orks are superior" based on numbers, because you don't have numbers for these disadvantages.

My gut feeling is that the introduction of that much racism in the system may simply result in a move towards intimidation. I'm not sure racism is still an effective modifier against intimidation because the belief that someone a person hates may well use that custom look (+2 intimidation) longblade in the manner they're threatening to (especially with those pheromones kicking in) becomes even more believable. That's what the racist was trained to think the orc would do. It's really believable now.

I wonder if I could get away with a custom look gas can and the scene from Reservoir Dogs.


That's the point. Orcs ARE superior, based on numbers. And that superiority shows up at tables. Orcs are the baseline characters, followed by trolls when high body/high strength is desirable. Each of the other main races are niche races for when you want edge, charisma, or willpower.

Don't get me wrong. It's perfectly fun to play a non-standard niche character. A dwarf face could be fun and might actually have a high enough char/willpower to survive unarmed against some spirits, but I'd expect to see the majority of characters built the way the game designers laid the numbers down.

It only works if you're 'role' playing. If you're just bothering with numbers, what gives me the most pluses, which give me the fewer minus then it doesn't matter. Play trolls for muscle, elves for magic everyone.

Stuff like racism is described as being a real issue, but it's not quantified. Purely on numbers, orks are superior, but the numbers don't say everything.

Thoroughly unconvinced and I think you contradict yourself – you say they have nothing to do with one another, yet admit that roleplaying determines the conflicts for which you are to roll (and that presumably includes the balance of the roll). And have you never been awarded bonus dice for, say, a negotiations test based on the spiel you give the GM? And what about being awarded bonus Edge for good roleplaying?

Yes, without mechanics you are in GM-fiat land, but isn't that still the case with the mechanics? Who do you think decides on the strength of opposition and challenges?

With regards to diceless freeform RPGs, suppose your character opens a box and a booby trap kills him. The GM laid out plenty of clues along the quest indicating that this box must not be opened and you either ignored them, didn't see them or failed to interpret them correctly. Right there you have a losing situation that was not caused by any mechanics and not completely dictated by the GM. The outcome was uncertain and went against the player because he roleplayed his character a certain way, such as being offensive to the guard who could have warned him or choosing to respect the wizard by not ransacking his study for intel on the rest of the dungeon.

You know there is one thing that might a bit of a balancer for humans... allow them to spend up to 45 BP for positive qualities. That might make humans something that people would want to play.

The problem is, that as an issue, it is a double edged sword. It's not just an issue for orcs, it's an issue for everyone. If the character was just trying to be accepted into one society, and that society was primarily human, then yes, it would be a disadvantage to be an orc. But in the world as written, the character is spending a large part of his life in the world that society ignores. As such, being a victim of the society's racism gives you something in common with all the other victims of racism.

There are places Starsky & Hutch, Columbo, Baretta, Kojak, Magnum P.I. and others can't go. The hero in those places is John Shaft. And he's a bad mother....

WATCH YOUR MOUTH!

"If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?"

"My nipples explode with delight!"

Gotta love the Pythons

We're just talkin' 'bout Shaft, whose a Troll in Shadowrun.

I think I might use this, I feel this is a nice balance

I would be very very careful with this, as it allows for some very nasty combos that aren't meant to be possible.

My point is, you don't need uber stats to "win". You are right in that roleplay determines what conflicts you face. But it can also affect the difficulty of the conflicts.

With a little planning, in-game and out, even mediocre stats can be effective, or at worst "good enough".

Good stats mean that you can, in fact, murder everyone in the room in a fight.

Good roleplay can mean you can, in fact, murder everyone in the room before you even enter it.

Controlling what conflicts you encounter is sometimes a lot more effective than just relying on stats to win you through.

Or, sometimes, total lack of control. I recall a few times when playing a particular barbarian winning the day by roleplaying up his awesome levels of stupidity.



-k

I can dig it.

Are those quality combos better then or on par with some of the synergy you can get from the other metatypes?

I think that part of the issue is that not all attributes are created equal. Orks and Trolls get lots of discounted strength, but so what? Strength is the least used stat. It's also the cheapest and easiest stat to augment. Just because they all cost the same to raise doesn't mean that they're all equally valuable.

Well, they should be, anyway.
(Thats why a lot of people changed the max. amount of armor from body*2 to str+body.

Not true. I find most players who play trolls are playing street sams or adept, so strength is pretty handy. Though I do agree it is easiest to boast, but if you pick troll you start off with large amount and can boast it pretty high (and as you point out fairly cheaply). It also used for most the athletic skill group. I would not say it is the least used stat (but maybe that just in my game). Think all attributes have their uses and if your playing a troll then you most likely plan on beating someones head in.

The most useful Attributes are the ones the GM makes most useful.

Well an adept who has a 60% essence discount for basic bioware and 10 for cultured can be pretty nasty.
As can a one who has a 50% essence discount for basic bioware and also follows a way giving discount on his adept powers.

Type-O System as an example becomes much more attractive when you can have 15B:s worth of other qualities too. instead of the normal 5BP:s.

Adepts with higher attribute maximums are also nasty. For me the metatypes advantage isn't the slightly cheaper out of the gate costs though that helps, it is the long run they will always be superior benefits.

Type-O system+ Magician. I don't know just how powerful that is, but methinks, it might be something to check out.



Also not true. I would be perfectly happy playing a Troll who is the team's face.

I have that concept in the work up stage right now. Runner name Kavorkaman

I did up my original Troll Face as an NPC for a "Fraud Investigations" firm that was going to hire the Runner team. They themselves were a runner team that advertised as something more legit, but had too many calls following another event in the game (not an effect of the PCs), so passed on the buck. His team included an ork female Rigger, who liked to follow the drones and clean up shotgun style if necessary; a human male Gun Bunny; and a female human Black Mage, who has a penchant for defensive-type spells.

One of the things that annoys me about the "Orks save BPs" idea is it leads to lots of fat, out-of-shape orks. If you want to save BPs as an Ork, that means you look at Body 4/Strength 3 and say "good enough" and spend the rest of your BP elsewhere. And Body 4/ Strength 3 is fine for a human, by Orc standards it's the same as a Body 1/Strength 1 Human, a weakling with health issues. If you actually had an Orc with comparable stats to the average orc, you don't save BP, you're just a bit tougher and stronger than all the non-Trolls. However, I don't think many people go that way.

I get the impression that Type O is as BP-expensive as it is specifically to PREVENT it from being combined with other high powered Qualities, like Magician or Technomancer.





-k

Technomancer is 5 BP isn't it? Would fit just fine.

Huh. I suppose so. So would Adept.

Maybe just the spellcasters were intended. or I could eb just reading too much into it.



-k

I'm a little dubious with Type O. Delta is nice and all but I've yet to run out of essence and I've never used anything above Alpha. Seems like quite the hefty investment for such returns. If you could at least buy the standard bioware second hand I could see the appeal but you can't even do that. You have to buy it full price and it does nothing for cultured bioware. I could think of a lot of more useful things to do with 30 BP.

Nothing wrong with out-of-shape Orks. Surely that's a more common average than the numeric one?

I agree. It could be useful for a highly optimized adept build, but most of the bioware a mage would want is cultured.

Maybe. Just from SR4A, however, I could find uses for several bioware items, especially to a combat mage. Although, you are right, much of it would be very situational.

I do find myself wondering, however. How much would a mage benefit from the complete biological ultrasound system?

Not at all, at least for spell casting, it's still not line of sight in my opinion. Just like mages with implanted UWB can't target with that.

If it's the implant i'm thinking of it's actually an adjustment to your hearing.

The way I understand how magic works, is that the sense isn't important (blind mages can still cast LOS spells, after all, even if they have to be using Astral perception), as long as they can pinpoint a target using natural senses.

Technological sensors don't work because the mage isn't actually making a connection naturally, but unlike most UWB, this wouldn't be an overlay on top of what you are seeing, it would be an "natural" understanding of the area.

I will double check but I'm pretty sure your understanding is false. A blind mage HAS to astrally perceivce, that and vision replacement paid for with essence are the only loopholes.

Otherwise magic rules would not be Line Of Sight. They'd be line of hearing.

Except Line of sight is the catch term for an unbroken line between the start point and the end point. Line of hearing would imply the spell could turn corners, as long as you could hear the target, which it can't do.

It's also stated that Astral Perception is not sight, either, that is just the most effective way of describing it.

You need line of sight and you have to "see" the target naturally.
The ONLY loophole are vision enhancements paid with essence. (Thats why cybereyes are so good for mages, since it enables them to reduce vision modifiers on spellcasting.