what happens when your specialist can't do his or her specialized skill? Do you as a GM make sure characters who are specialized in one area face nontraditional challenges? In example the guy who can only fire a pistol, do you every so often through him into a game where shooting people is just not an option? As a player what do you do? How do you feel about the afore mentioned scenario? is it a fun challenge? or is it just the GM being a dick?

I see a lot of people on this site worrying immensely about dice pools. But what happens when you don't get to roll those dice every single time?

I always expect it to happen at least a few times. It's part of the GM's job to make sure things are challenging/interesting, and that's one of the many tools they have in their toolbox. Getting arrested or otherwise captured is the most classic example of this situation coming about. It only becomes "dickish" when they do it on a regular basis, and doubly so when they do it out of spite or vengeance because they didn't have the balls to say no when you were creating the character. Sadly, I've see that suggestion a lot on these forums, though not so much any more.

As a player, I pride myself in being able to think outside the box when I need to. Sometimes that means relying on other skills and abilities. Sometimes that means using my 'massive' dice pool in a new and exciting way. Sometimes it means running like a bat out of Hell until I can come up with an appropriate plan or find some other means of dealing with the situation.

It is fortunate that in the current rules set, it is possible to create a character that is heavily specialized in one area, pretty darn good in a second area, and decent in two or three others.



-k

Yup. It's easy to have some useful skills in something other than shooting people in the face or only hacking. You pretty much actively have to choose to not have useful skills.

People who only have skill in shooting people in the face (etc) will find a lot of time that they are going to be bored. Life is hard, tell the players up front that they need to have useful non-combat skills and point it out when they give you a character. Then crush them like a bug if they try to screw up the game because they are bored and decide to start random fights or similar stuff.

I try and write/run games to appeal to the entire group... Which means catering scenes to various characters skills and the players personal tastes...

However, I'm also telling a story. And sometimes, that story doesn't include a chance to shoot the bad guy in the face, or the chance to pornomance your way through the game, or whatever.

The fact is, if you make a character that only does *ONE* thing in Shadowrun, no matter how well he does it? You have to know what you're getting into, and you have to know that there will be times you and a d20 will have the same amount of usefulness in the game. Otherewise, frankly, you're an idiot, or you're VERY new and your GM is an idiot for not helping you make a more well-rounded character.

Now, to be fair... My Season 3 Missions Character, Rush, was a brick of a Street Sammy. Totally cliche'd. Uncouth, dual pistols, trenchcoat, monowhip. All he was good for was combat. That is it. ANd he was built that way on purpose... Mainly because at the time I was tired of playing the Planner or the mage or the utility character. Sometimes it's fun to be the dumb fighter. But I also knew going in that I was not going to be stealthy, was not going to be of any use during negotiations, etc. When it came time to roll initiative, I was a GOD. The rest of the time, i hung back and let the others do the heavy lifting.

SO, umm... Short answer: Don't screw them all the time, but give them reasons to invest their karma into branching out, because one trick ponies are very limited.

Bull

I like to take my players out of their comfort zone sometimes, but I also give them their time in the sun. The sammie with maxed out Automatics but only a few dice for pistols will have chances to let the lead fly, but will also sometimes find himself in situations where carrying his big gun would get him arrested or worse. He may also occasionally find himself in a situation where the only gun available to him is a sports rifle, and curse himself for not taking the Firearms group rather than just Automatics and Pistols.

I tend to mix and match the sorts of runs the players get thrown into, variety being the spice of life and all that. One week they'll be infiltrating a corp facility to steal a genetically modified gorilla, the next they'll be hunting down someone's daughter who has gone off the reservation out in the boonies. In the former case, a player who has taken the Animal Handling skill might get a chance to shine; in the latter Outdoors skills may prove a boon. And the fact I often give an extra point of karma when the chance to use an obscure/minor skill saves the day encourages my players to round their characters out.

There is always a way to pornomance the way to the pay!

One trick ponies don't deserve sympathy. If a PC has the singular ability of shooting a pistol and there are times when that is not a viable option, then either the PC must turn it into a viable option or twiddle his thumbs. On the other hand, ensuring that talking is the only useful skill on a run, where the party only has some talkers is just shitty.

Really?
So your players don't realize it doesn't matter what they take you will always at times highlight their weaknesses?

One trick ponies should be a problem that solves itself. They see they are missing out on parts of the run because they can't contribute, so they round out their skills when they get some karma.

A potential problem with hyperspecialists, though, is the "when all you have is a hammer..." problem, thus a lot of the horror stories about the killing machine getting bored and starting a fight during negotiations.

My own answer mirrors some of your own:

I tell a story. Now obviously Mr. Johnson, or in our case the Fixer, isn't going to hire a team to perform a job they can't accomplish. The bottom line in that is failure. But a long shot? A gamble? A calculated bet? Yeah they get those sorts of jobs. They also get the desperate ones. I like to have a challenge for all of the players-and if the story calls for it spots where there is no straight forward choices.

How about when you play a 'Sam, but the rest of the team keeps finding ways to accomplish the entire run without any violence?

Then its up to you to interject some...

I think it's more fun to have the face in a fire fight while the slugger does the spy romance stuff and the anemic hacker tries to survive in the desert! Usually being out of your element brings out more of the character.

If that happened more than once, I'd put a bullet in my fixer's head. It might be fun once as an example of when a run goes completely wrong, but if buying a high skill in something is simply a guarantee that I'll only face challenges where it can't be used, something is very wrong.

No one said only...

I must say that I am not big on GMs who "tell a story." In my experience, and I speak for nobody here but me, GMs that have done this generally do a lot of railroading and have so blatantly walled the group in when they try to deviate from the "script."

One GM like this I knew once said, after I told him about a time when I was GMing and the players decided not to take the offered job from Mr. Johnson and instead made their own plan to steal cargo boxes of stuff off a boat in the harbour, "And you let them just walk away from the job?" I will point out the not just one character was specialized, all the team except for one was specialized in combat and the one hold out wasn't very good at anything. They made a plan and used their contacts and defaulted on attributes a lot but managed to make a go of it and get a few cargo boxes. of course they found out later that not only was they listed cargo in them, so were some unlisted items that the shippers wanted back..!

Isn't that more of a general communications problem though?

Ya know what? I just realized that I rambled off the topic. Let's rephrase to say that a team that is hyper specialized can still try and make a go of it outside their specialties. So can a single specialized character. They just have to set their sights a little lower.

Or choose a different challenge more suiting their strengths as it seems your players did.

It can be a fine line to walk. I'd like to think that telling a story doesn't have to end that way-I mean everyone is telling a story at the table. We all just tell it in different ways!

If you take the time to know the players and the character's motivations, then telling a story that they'll follow along with without issue isn't difficult. There's no need to railroad when you know the players will follow the path on their own.

Improvisation doesn't come easily to a lot of people. Sadly, a lot of people who think they're good at it really aren't, but they don't have the capacity to see it for themselves. And in such cases, "railroading" becomes the only way they know how to deal with situations outside of the limited possibilities they considered when designing a mission/adventure/encounter.

There isn't really much you can do about it, either, other than try to talk to them about it in an attempt to get them to understand the problem. And that's assuming the problem is actually on their end. Players have exactly the same capacity to not realize that they're not the most clever person alive either.

It's a problem with being human, really. I think its why it's so hard for people to find good groups to play with, whether it's in the real world, online, or in a video game like an MMO or something.

Edit: Hmm, I seem to have lost where I was going with this post. Aww crap, I may be one of the people I'm talking about.

And then there's some improvisors who make the phrase, "Hold muh beer, an watch this!" a thing to truly be terrified of!

http://avstop.com/news/wtvj.html

Big mistake he forgot to ask someone to hold his beer.

My theory on specialization versus versatility is this: typically a character can be great at one thing at the expense of other things, or pretty good at some stuff, or crappy at everything. I like to make more versatile characters but here's the thing, if a character that is specialized in something never has to do without that thing, specialization is always the better choice. A character who has 12 dice with any weapon is worse off than the character that has 16 dice in one weapon, unless there are times when characters don't get a choice in the type of weapon they're using.

Ideally, those sorts of situations will come up organically. A character may be stranded somewhere, have his gear stolen or damaged, by trying to casually blend into a crowd where giant dikoted combat axes would be noticeable-- there's all sorts of reasons a character won't have their particular item. But if those situations never come up (ultimately because the GM doesn't enforce them), then the versatile character is spreading his points thin for no reason.

I think the specialized character should have to do without about 20% of the time. I picked the figure out of a hat. Any more than that seems punishing to specialized character, any less any there's little point to trying to be versatile.

In a wider sense, having characters who aren't very good at something in terms of dice pools can make the players be a lot more creative when those things have to get done. Or even if it doesn't, sometimes things getting screwed up is part of the fun. There aren't too many movies where everything goes great for the protagonists all the time. A little chaos, in my opinion, is good for the game.

This is the issue I have with most GM's. I like the people that love to tell a story. The problem is if you come to the table with only one tale to tell. Just as we bash the one trick pony characters, I have the same view with the one trick pony GM's. About a decade ago I came to the table as a GM. I had a new module in hand and was going to spring it on the players. They didn't want it, so I let them walk from the module. It literally went back in the bag and I yanked out a folder that seemed to fit the mood of the evening. Everyone had a good time and I didn't need to railroad them. From a former GM's point of view if you walk in with only one idea you are as bad as the guy who can shoot a dime at 500 yards, but will crit skew a ettiqute roll every time.

-LZ

Yeah that can be a bitch.

For my own part I'd like to think that I follow stories, not a single story. More often than not my stories come from my players, and their characters.

Agreed on having multiple options as a GM. Our current GM has something like 50 jobs thought out just waiting to be done. We reject one, he just pulls another that's appropriate. In the games I GM (Not SR, for better or worse), I have an end goal in mind with a very flexible destination. As mentioned earlier, knowing how your players and characters will react to varied stimuli helps immensely in getting them to where you'd like them to be, without them feeling like they got railroaded.

This is my approach as well. In my case, not so much 'jobs' as 'events/plots'. Things drawn from happenings in the world, response to previous events and character backgrounds. In my curernt game, which hasn't been running long, I have about a half-dozen pots simmering away. any one of them can come to the front at any point in time, and it's usually the players who decide which is which -- though circumstances can dictate otherwise.

It's only the GM being a dick if they didn't warn the players that hyper specializing was a bad idea. I am very upfront with my players that they better make characters who tend towards generalists and have real personalities. I'll warn people about pitfalls I see when they submit characters for approval, but if they fail to make changes it then becomes their problem. I have seen more than a few characters at my table that are not capable of doing anything but one thing very well and I absolutely do not either cater towards that character or go out of my way to write them out of the mission. I set the mission and opposition up in line with how I envision it would be done, and most of the player characters are adaptable to work with it (and even surprise me more than a few times). The over specializing has mostly gone by the wayside now.

My experience is that the best way to combat this problem as a GM is to not over plan. I wing it a lot as the GM, I will loosely outline a plot and almost invariably it will change mid course, or sometimes before it gets off the ground. We share GM Duties in our group and I know some of the others try to outguess the players and have options for almost every conceivable player course of action, which to me is an exercise in futility. I've said it before 3 x 5 cards are your best friend, and get them in different colors one for locations, one for NPC contacts, one for NPC incidentals, one for enemies and adversaries, and another color for plot elements. Keep everything you come up with and break it down and eventually you'll have a big box of mix and match adventure components to run on the fly.

The thing that jumps out me about this is that one thing may not have anything to do with the other; a character may be highly specialized in a single area and still be roleplayed well. Another character may have an interesting mix of abilites and qualities, but if the player is only concerned with how the points work out, it doesn't translate to a real personality.

They are in fact 2 separate requirements, both should be met for approval in one of my games.

Do you think that a larger player group makes specialization more viable?

For my money, if the character has an interesting personality and the player is going to have fun even when on runs that aren't ideally suited for the build, I don't mind a specialized character. A good player doesn't necessarily have to have a large dice pool to contribute and how the character is played is a big x-factor to how effective it is. (As long as everyone is having fun, builds aren't that big of an issue.)

From the old Deep in the Game blog:

@Ascalaphus: Yep, where a smaller group favors more generalized characters that can cover multiple roles (or are happy in a fairly narrow range of missions).

In the long run, isn't this part of how you "train" your characters?

In the first few sessions, characters may be specialized or generalized by some whim of the players, but after some time they figure out what kind of challenges you as GM put in front of them, and they start spending Karma on those skills they need often, or perceive themselves to be problematically weak in, or that they've managed to use well so far.

And when a player needs to make a new character (due to PC death for example), they can make one totally adapted to the style of campaign you've run so far.

So if you start seeing more and more hyperspecialized characters, maybe as a GM you've been letting people get away with that too much? While if you've often challenged each character on a broad spectrum, people will (in their own interest) diversify their abilities?

You misunderstand. Taking PCs out of their comfort zone and highlighting their weaknesses are not the same thing. I will throw a variety of situations at my PCs, and they will flourish or wilt depending on their wits, skillsets and luck of the dice.

By way of example, let's take 2 sammies and Firearms skills. Sammie A goes Automatics 6, Pistols 4 for 40BP; sammie B takes the Firearms group at 4 also for 40BP. I am ignoring specializations in this example as, even if a PC doesn't take one out of the box, he can add it after a run or two. In default situations where the PC can use their gun of choice, Sammie A gets 2 more dice than Sammie B for the win; in high security default situations both can carry pistols with 4 skill dice for the draw. Thus, for default situations Sammie A has the edge.

But let's say these sammies are sent on a run in the boonies to a town where the Gene Hackman sheriff has banned automatic weapons within town limits. Sammie A can use his pistol or default on AGI for a weapon with more kick, but Sammie B gets 4 skill dice for any Longarms he cares to use. Let's say the PCs are extracting a scientist from a corp mall, but get attacked by a heavily armoured rival runner team who take out the shotgun and taser armed mall cop first. Sammie A will probably plug away with his pistol, but Sammie B might think to grab the shotgun to fire back with. And so on. What Sammie B might lack for in default situations he gains in versatility, and in my mind the good GM will from time to time reward him for this foresight.

As Mercer said, if you always let your players use their one hyperspecialized skill then you are penalizing the generalist. I would go further, and say that if you always let a PC use his skill of choice, you are shortchanging the PC by not challenging him sufficiently.

It makes it more viable certainly, my preference for smaller teams is a big part of the reason I push for less specialization at my table.

I prefer to play and game with players with a bit of flexibility.

Sure the sam is the best cybered killing machine, but the face/hacker can at least put some lead downrange (usually 1 shot per IP with a simple aimed action thrown in to make the few shots count)

And the mage might make a good back up talker (especially the shaman using cha as a drain stat)

But regardless they can focus on the specialization and yet still be able to function outside the focus. If not at creation, down the road.

A character's background will also affect the nature of the starting skills, a corp secretary might have decent computer and influence skills. But little to no combat skills (maybe 1 or 2 pts for basic self defense courses they enrolled in) and most of the skills will reflect their corporate role.

Where the courier/smuggler growing up in the barrens will have basic combat, driving, negotiation, and some computer skills. With a little maintenance skills and such thrown in. But likely lacks things like the ability to pilot aircraft or write software. He might pick up those skills or focus on what he knows.

A lot of it is thinking of the team maybe not starting out as such, but slowly working towards a spec ops team. Where there is some overlap of skills, but none try to be as good as the specialist. Just good enough to take over and function if they are down or out.

Usually we have games that run in mini campaigns that start out slow with info and such and usually end with lots of violence. So the characters all get a chance to shine but we accept you are not going to use all your skills every time. That is the trick to being well rounded, you have a back up skill, or you have fun role playing. My fav' character is a slightly unstable razor girl. At a formal party I started sending hints to the others that I wanted to do something and was considering making a scene. In real life I would never do that just to stop being bored at a party but my character would, and they knew it.

I usually find specialization is useful for aspects of a character. So I might make a generalized char that can hold negotiations (verbally), sneak a bit, and throw lead, fairly general. But I might specialize in 1911s instead of just taking pistols, and I'll usually take some other perks to help out in shooting. For Sneaking around, instead of just maxing stealth, I might spec in blending or being unobtrusive to slip past guards that WILL see me.

If your specialization is useless, you should have thought twice about getting that liberal arts degree.

Perhaps shadowrunners are all liberal arts majors who could not find other work.

Either Liberal Arts or IT.

I find myself a bit annoyed when it comes to GMs who 'want to tell a story'. In a few cases, the game master has wanted certain events to occur, and regardless of what we do, the GM ensures it does occur. For example, I have a character who is firmly in the 'don't be seen' camp of running, entering and leaving without any sign you were actually there. The team was cloaked, silenced, had gecko crawl sustained on them, had armour which absorbed their heat signature, had line-of-sight communication with one another so nobody would hack their comm signals, the works.

We were doing awesome through the entire run, concealing our presence and making sure we weren't seen. We decide to hole up inside a vent, isolated from anywhere we'd be spotted to take a breath, and the game master decided 'oh, well, since you're relaxed HERE, you're noticed'.

We were able to make out like bandits, but I was really ticked off that the GM basically disallowed a true 'in and out' stealth mission.

lol. That's about as likely as a GM "allowing" the opposition to go down without getting a shot off and not have waves of backup start arriving. Sometimes ya have to let the GM do some damage to PCs or they feel like they are doing a terrible job.

Heh. It should be possible. I had once considered doing a true 'sniper' character -- find a good place, dig in, and wait for the shot. I still might do that some time. I think the sniper's creed works well in SR, especially if the enemy doesn't get their defence.

Whats the fun in that. With that set up, technically every run will now be an "in and out" mission. Part of the fun is the combat aspect of the game. If thats not available do to tech overkill then why have the run in the first place the DM just says you guys are so bad ass you get in get out done.....Neeext. It's like playing a video game with god cheats active.

Since the game is based on statistics, it is inevitable that not all runs will be in and out. Therefore, in order to preserve a sense of verisimilitude, it's important that at least some runs *are* in and out, if the players are lucky. But it will be highly unlikely that they'll all be in and out.

The fun is in the idea that careful planning and excellence of execution can pay off, showing off that the team is in fact that good. Combat's fine, but if you can avoid combat and get the job done, all the better. Tests are still made, to see if you succeed in avoiding security, can bypass protocols in the Matrix, and can cover your butts enough that you can get in and out. It isn't like playing with cheat mode - it's like playing a stealth game and doing well enough to ace each stage as you go through sheer skill.