Man its been awhile since ive posted here but here goes. In our group we have a certain player who is addicted to pimped characters. His idea of a balanced character is a cyber troll with a 20 body 15 stregnth and a quickness of 10, An aspected sorrcer adept with a force 4 power focus and 4 level 6 combat spells, and a elven cyber guy that goes on a 4d6 with a reaction of 22. To my knowledge this player has never made a character that had all attributes under 10. If he does make a character with some attridutes under 10 he always has one or 2 attributes in the 13 to 17 range. HELP!!!!! We have gotten to the point of outright refusing to let him play with these demi god characters. We literally have to sit down with him and help him make a semi balanced chatacter, but i feel that this only temporalary fixes the problem. Does anyone have any tips to help him break his addiction. All the other players make characters that can function outside of combat fairly well and are fairly easy to challange in a fun way in combat. But when this guy brings in his characters he kills everyone before the other chacters can even draw a sword and then hides behind the rest in out of combat social situations. Im sure all of us have at least one of these in our groups. Any suggestions?

Lone Star sweeps of his apartment building. They knock on his door, he freaks, he gets handed a new blank sheet.

Tried simillar stuff. Bad things happen to his characters while the other less godlike characters seem to have less "bad luck" when we do stuff like this he seems to think that the answer is a more pimped chaacter even after we tell him these things happen because his characters are to pimped.

Heart attacks are a biotch, they seem to strike anyone at anytime

Better yet, next campaign you start, GM makes all characters, period. You pull your character out of a hat. You only kno the obvious flaws, etc.

I don't know how to get all attributes at 10+ in a starting character. Is he cheating?

In our campaign we'd try to let a complete combat-monster fit into the team. They are always useful to have around, sorta like carrying an umbrella in case it rains.

Obviously he is violating some unspoken concept that the GM and other players have. If you can find a way to describe that concept and get agreement on the concept, then he can work to make characters that fit within the new guidelines.

Many GMs have a concept for their campaigns, and work with the players to build characters within that concept. Obviously this player isn't trying to do that.

Many players go through a period of trying to make the most combat-intensive character they can. Nothing wrong with that. They will play with highest-initiative (my favorite), or highest-body (my son's favorite), or highest-charisma/social (the best actor in my campaign), or experiment with a variety of best-at characters (the best new GM in my campaign).

Perhaps suggest that he make the most social character he can design and see what he comes up with. Suggest he run the best technician he can for a few weeks.

P.S. The phrase "pimped character" is used to describe one that is severely weak in important ways, not one that is super-strong. For example, my character with priority A in magic that didn't yet know he was a magician. "His" plan was to get stronger by getting more cyberware, and in game I expected him to learn he had an aptitude for magic.

Have the group run into someone who is bigger and badder than he is. Since he is the obvious threat, have the baddie drop him first, and the rest of the group can then run away. scratch one munchkin.

Another way of doing this (and that isn't so cheap) is to put him in a situation where all his combat skills and weapons dont help him a whole lot. Example, I had a troll that wanted to kill everything he fought with a assualt canon (I think, it's been a while, but it was some sort of big heavy weapon). The group ended up in a car chase where they are tailing a van. The troll tried to lean out the passenger side windo to shoot the van. of course, he had some trouble getting his weapon out the window and then aiming, but hey, he was the big bad troll. To bad the back doors of the van opened up revealing a mounted MG which proceeded to hoe down their vehicle. The rest of the charecters at least had the vehicle between them and the incoming fire (they were smart enough to slouch/duck when they saw the gun). The troll, on the other hand, didn't have the same luck and took several rounds to the head ("What, your not wearing any type of head protection? ok then, it'll be 15 deadly. *dice rolled* Dang, almost got a success there. Here's your new character sheet.")

Basically, it's like playing whack-a-munchkin. Munchkin comes up, munchkin goes down. If he doesn't learn, well, I guess you and the rest of the party can have fun watching him get minced week after week.

Are your campaigns typically short?
My group had this problem a lot when we tended to play short campaigns, but as we shifted to longer campaigns everyone's style of play shifted dramatically. I rarely see resources above priority C, and everyone makes a character with a well balanced set of abilities. Of course, this is all so that they can be twice as scary later on when they're filled with beta-ware, or with half a dozen initiation grades, but at least then they've earned it.

He dosent have all attributes over ten their are some that suffer a bit but not just alot. No he isnt cheating hes just good at making combat monsters while like you said everyone goes throught hat phase and gets out of it (me included) he seems to be stuck in it. The main problem is in order to challange one of his characters we have to put everyone elses characters at great risk which could easily end up in everyone dying unless the pimped character guy gets to the uber boss first and this is obviously not fun for anyone in the run except the combat monster. Secondly if we design a run that would challange the other characters he kills everyone before the end of the second initative pass. This is also not fun for anyone except him. I do however like the idea of making characters for players i think ill make a character for him on the next run i GM and make him use it if he wants to play and let him expirence a more well rounded character for once.

Magical threats have a tendency to end that sort of rubbish

There are usually no shortage of players of that type waiting with baited breath at the gaming shops for more like them to join their ranks. Like you said, most folks go through that stage at some point in their gaming carreers. It takes time to realise that the little guy can be more fun to play than the hulking mass of death

yes he knows his character suck the fun out of runs. i want to say thanks to everyone for the imput. youve all given me some interesting ideas.

Give them a situation where they don't get paid if anyone catches them. After spending the entire session in the runnermobile listening to Maria Mercurial because the other players won't let him come with them, he might start to get ideas.

Then make him pay twice as much for his gear because he lacks the social skills to get a good price. I take it he is cybered up to the eye-balls, how about the electromagnet trap; big electromagnet in the ceiling, GM rules that cyberware in his campaign contains ferrous metals, troll gets a flying lesson...

Also, what is he skimping on to afford combat monsters? The most direct answer (though the one I hate to do) is to play up the strengths of the other characters, keep putting the team in situations where brute force is known to be ineffective and then suggest that his next character invests in some investigation or counter-security skills.

Honestly, I think that giving him a well-balanced sheet and telling him to give it a test-drive will be the best answer. Get them to use the non-combat skills...

I remember my power mad period.
Back when vision mag and smartlink worked sanely (whole nother discussion)
and had a character with a ranger x box, max str and a 7 in skill.

sure it wasn't hideable easily, but when you have an arrow launched from sniper rifle range in absolute silence, who cares?

Use the BECKS karma based charachter creation system (google: "BECKS shadowrun").

Powergaming is dramatically harder, and attempts to do so are not rewarded by the system nearly as much as they are in the priority or point system.

It would probably increase the skill points available to your non-power gamers by 50% and decrease the problem player's points by 50%, unless they mend thier ways.

This kinda needs to be handled out of game, rather than in. Mulching the pc won't tell the pc anything, except maybe he's not wanted. If he isn't, do the decent thing and tell him.

If you'd like to keep him but not his habits, figure out WHY he makes characters like this. I've found in my experience people make monster characters out of fear or a need for attention. He's either worried that his character will bite it right out of the gate OR he wants to be the biggest, baddest thing around because he feels that way he can't be ignored.

Sit down with your player and query him. Tell him what you're telling us, that his character is out of balance with your game. That he is spoiling the fun for others and that if he wants to keep playing he needs to change his style. Try to find out the reasons for his actions, and then work with him to find ways to deal with his reasons and concerns in a way that doesn't break your game. Most people are willing to change if they're given some attention. If he's not willing to change, simply ask him to leave.

Either way, you've taken steps to keep him in the game, and you've proved to your group that you're willing to work around problems in a friendly way. It's a win win situation for you.

How the heck does he do this? Are you using 125 BP?

I'm amazed no one has said it yet.

Firstly, if you just put him up against a threat him-sized, he'll just be more badassed next time, which requires a bigger threat, which prompts more badassery, ecetera ad nauseum.

So what you do, is A) Force him to talk. If *he* ends up being the one that has to get the vital piece of gear or talk his way out of the house rigged with bombs guarded by crazy people. Get your other players in on this, they'll be glad to help. GMs seem to forget they can bribe other players, or even ask them, to do their bidding, and most will, just cause it's fun that way. B) Mutate his character. Now, bear with me. But he'll start to think of them more as people and less as piles of numbers if the landlord starts demanding back-rent, or he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant, or him mother calls because he forgot her birthday, or you shoot him in the knee and he limps forevermore.

Have fun!

One way to try to cure him would be to make a campaign where everyone is under powered. A bunch of normal people, corp secretary, delivery boy, whatever, stuck in either Bug City or Renraku arcology. They all have to rely on wit and each other to survive, no Mad Killin' Skillz of any sort, with of course your opposiiton made to taylor the fact the PCs can't really kill anything, they can only run, hide, and trade favours with the occasionnal bad-ass NPC they find in order to survive.

Three things.

First off, you cant get your stats that high, thats almost past the caps for post character creation. Either he is a) cheating b) using the rules incorrectly or c) you are exxagerating about his character. Figure out which it is and repost with reality, so you can get some actual useful advice on that area.

Two, if he is powergaming his attributes that does a whole lot of jack against some types of situations. Melee, for instance, is virtually totally dependant on your melee skill for success. Driving is another area where skill takes all. Identify what area he hasnt powergamed and force him into that situation a lot. Make him learn that more rounded is better, and that combat isnt the be all end all of SR. Stealth missions are another good one (Johnson says "u must win without killing anyone and be undetected, or my plan will fail and u wont get paid").

Three, theres always something bigger. When Tir Ghosts packing AV rounds surprise you from magical cover and take called shots at your head using a sinper rifle from outside your visual range you die. Sooner your player learns that the better.

Except don't ever, ever pull three on him unless he's severely messed up number two. And by severely, I mean CLUE file severely, like going on a killing rampage or something. Number two is the big one to emphasize here, to the tune that less than 5% of an average SR game should be combat-oriented, and almost all of that should be stealth-combat, not the knock-down, drag-out LOUD gun battles that you see in John Woo movies. Any time more than a dozen rounds are fired in less than a minute (20 Combat Turns) Lone Star and maybe the national guard should be arriving on the scene arresting everything that moves.

Another thing to keep in mind is enforcing legality codes. Remember that high-Force spells and foci, most firearms, much of the powerful ammunition, and lots of cyberware is highly illegal. Wandering around with any of that stuff just hanging out is just inviting Lone Star to hunt you down.

The point here is to emphasize the non-combat aspects of Shadowrun, not to stoop to the guy's level by pimping out the challenges and starting an arms race.

If your description of these characters is accurate, it sounds like you need to start with:

1. Enforce the character generation rules.

There is no 2.

gknoy, yes, it is cool. We talk about character design together, and although he rarely plays in my weekly game (all adults), he asks about it all the time. Someday he'll invite all his chummers from school to spend 18 hours gaming on a weekend. I've offered to GM, which he is thrilled about. Perhaps for his next birthday, when he turns 15.

He does join in my bi-monthly group (about 20 players) who played Virtual Seattle and will move over to Shadowrun Missions when it has enough material.

P.S. You should see my wife's samurai!

I'm curious, could we see one of his character sheets?

EDIT: This was directed at the original poster, re: the supposed "ten in all stats" character.

Kill the munchkin. It will thin the gene pool and our descendents won't have to deal with munchkins.

mmmmmm eugenics

It sounds like he just doesn't mesh with your group. That happens, sometimes.

But if you want to help him-- make him play something uber-pimped out, but not a combat moster. Tell him that his next character is going to be an otaku. Make it an albino gnome otaku, if you want; but get him to channel that mental creativity into a different aspect of the game.

One way of handling this is to assign character roles during character generation. One person is assigned the role of face, one gets combat jock, one gets decker, and so on. If you're intergrating him into an existing game, it's even easier. Shadowrun teams seldom look to fill roles that they already have covered; tell him that the team has all the combat jocks they need, but they could really use a decker or dedicated face.

...unless he blows it up with the heavy weapon that he habitually carries around. Which is where the law enforcement comes into it. If sonny-Jim here is carrying a fucking assault cannon and using it on the street in the city, have the police call attention to it. As soon as anyone finds out that he has a police presence/military (or corporate) investigation team on his arse 24/7 (i.e. phone taps, bugs in his apartment, possible sting investigations once the authorities figure out that the local fixer sells military grade weapons, or corp hit teams once Renraku figures out that Charlie fixer was the one who helped to nick off with their star R&D scientist last week) they'll stop associating with him, including the other characters in his shadowrunning group. Start to stack on the "Bad reputation" flaw. Soon the character won't be able to get any decent shadowrun action because his contacts and the other characters in his group have shut him out. No shadowrunning=0 . 0 means lifestyles can't be maintained and the character goes down the shitter. Rather than letting him go out with a bang, and allowing him think he has a fighting chance, make his character go out with a wimper. Maybe next time he'll think twice about playing that character.

In about a minute i have thrown together one of his typical characters first here is the cyber version of attributes. These dont even go into the dual dikote claymores and all the foci and shotguns these are just the attributes

combat cyclopse +2 natural reach and add the +2 reach from claymores and you see my point
Body 18
Quickness 10
Stregnth 17
Charisma 1
Intelligence 2
Willpower 5

Now comes the even more frightening one, the mage

Dwarven combat mage
Body 5
Quickness 4
Stregnth 4
Charisma 2
Intelligence 6
Willpower 9 (15 with sorcery)

This mage can throw 24 die into a combat spell as well and goes on a 4d6
These sample characters dont even do the munchkinness justice

**Edit** And yes we enforce CANNON rules for character generation.

I actually had the idea of a deathmatch scinario to let all the players vent their character cheezing urges. The winner was another pc besides the one in question because the pc in question had class. The winner of the match could throw 40 die into a stunbolt and had a willpower of 10

***EDIT*** did i mention he was also a psyad path of the magican with quick strike

Hmmm. I don't see all attributes over 10 on either of them.

How much Karma have these characters earned?

How does the dwarf get to 15 Willpower with sorcery? Or 24 dice for combat spells?

How does a Combat Cyclops get +2 reach naturally? I'm unfamiliar with that.

I see a Cyclops whose terrible at ranged combat but hell on 2 feet if he gets within a couple meters of you. (He's also terrible in a 2m diameter sewer pipe.) His ranged combat problems would put him at a big disadvantage for more than half the combat in the games our team plays, and his ability to wipe the floor in the other third wouldn't unbalance the game. He should not be able to kill more than two or three opponents in a battle, as the rest should run away and call for backup.

Ok, your munchkins munch-fu sucks royally.

Both characters can be utterly incapacitated by a single decrease attribute (charisma) spell on a whim.

There you go, play with it, give all the mages it, have a day.

i may have been a little bit unclear with wording of attributes in my origional post which is what i was afaraid of. those types of characters are his typical ones let me try to rephraise what im trying to say he has never made a character with all attributes under 10. and as far as the willpower goes its simple a dwarven mage eith excetpional attribute and bonus attribute willpower and the appropiate ammount of flaws -4 and a force 6 sustaining focus with increased willpower. I know how the spell works but we generally allow 2 weeks between games (gametime) so he has more than enough gametime to sit and reroll the die untill he gets enough successes to raise his willpower to 15

***Edit*** +2 reach was a typo (my bad didnt catch it) as far as ranged attacks are concerned that can be fixed witha simple smartlink like i said these sheets dont even go into edges and flaws skills and gear. I just used cannon rules and pumped out some numbers. and i am a little unclear as to how a decrease charisma spell would take out a character. could you please elaborate

Thanks everyone i am already forumlating plots for future runs Muwhahahahahaha!!!

To increase willpower +6 he needs to achieve twelve 9's on his sorcery test. If he rolls 144 dice for his sorcery test, he'll achieve it a little more than half the time.

If he keeps the spell up all the time, it WILL be noticed by an occasional lonestar magician that asks to see his permit to have a spell over force 2.

good point i need to start sitting down with him and roleplaying lonestar sending forces in from all directions to "arrest the suspect"

TN for Decrease Charisma is 10-(target's essence). It is resisted by Charisma. Each 2 successes lowers the target's charisma by 1 (up to the force of the spell). Any target whose charisma reaches 0 will stand around as if they were mindless. SR3 p. 193

Do any of his characters have a personality? A story? A background? Motivations? Fears? Any kind of traits other than the capacity to kill things? If not, he's not roleplaying, he's playing a Diablo board game.

See me, I'm very picky about who I game with. I'd let him know in as nice of a way as I could, "Roleplaying isn't about killing stuff, it's about creating a character, a character that could in his own right be a person, with his own motivations, goals, fears, hopes and dreams, and acting as them." I'd make him understand what roleplaying meant If he claims, "Uhh, um, he has that!" I'd ask, "Okay, tell m the background? Where was he born? Why does he Shadowrun? How did he get his training?" Et cetera. I doubt he'd be able to answer any of that.

If his rampant munchinizing continues, I'd tell him to get the fuck out and not come back. No sugar coating it. "You clearly have NO idea how to roleplay and just want to kill things. Go play Diablo, you're not wanted here."

Of course, I'd been RP'ing FAR too long to put up with BS.

A final point -- after two combats the Cyclops will have enough of a reputation among security forces that every Cyclops in the metroplex will be stopped about once a day until he's apprehended. He can't buy a slurpee at a Stuffer Shack without risking his freedom. No contact will meet with him. The team by their own choice will leave him behind during half the game.

In addition to the GM having final say on whether a character is allowed in a game, we play that the Shadowrun Team (the characters, not the players) can also choose not to let a PC join their team. The players just roleplay their interview with the PC trying to join them.

Cyclopes are distinctive, even more so than regular trolls. He's going to stick out like a sore thumb wherever he goes and whatever he does. That's a real problem for a career criminal. This particular one is both stupid and boorish, so he's probably not going to be good at covering his tracks, and people certainly aren't going to go out of their way to cover for him. And he has no depth perception... that counts for more than just the ranged attack penalty. Remember it any time he tries to judge distances, or do anything that requires judging distances (and that can be anything from picking up a coffee cup to driving to leaping across an alleyway and trying to grab the fire escape on the other side to avoid plummeting 20 stories to the pavement below).

Also, being stupid, he's vulnerable to illusions and similar spells... he'll never see through an Invisibility spell at any Force. His Perception sucks, so he should be fairly easy to ambush even without resorting to magic. Actually hurting him with an ambush is more difficult, but, as the GM, you can always get a bigger hammer... and Shadowrun does provide hammers big enough to squash a cyclops like a bug. And if he actually plays that low Int and Charisma (and my experience has been that most people who make characters like that do play low Int and Charisma, regardless of what the numbers on their sheet say), I'm sure he'll provide plenty of excuses for your NPCs to find a bigger hammer.

As for the dwarf... Exceptional Attribute raises Racial Modified Limit and Attribute Max, but does not allow you to put more than 6 points in the Attribute at character generation. Max starting Willpower for a dwarf is 8, unless he's a gnome or an albino (both of which carry disadvantages... career criminal, remember).

And you can't boost a 9 Willpower to 14 with Increase Attribute (Willpower). Ain't happening. I don't care how long you sit around and roll dice (if he insists, make him actually sit there and roll the dice until he gets his 12 successes). You need to be throwing 108 dice to average 12 successes against TN 9. I'm not sure how many dice he's throwing for casting, but he needs at least 18 to be able to reliably raise his Willpower even one point.

The rest of the dwarf's Attributes aren't exceptional. The dwarven combat sorcerer I've been playing, who is tough, but not unbalancingly so, has better stats across the board. And, again, low Charisma... he's not going to be making a lot of friends who'll be inclined to help him out.

The +4d6 initiative isn't all that big a deal. Increase Reflexes doesn't boost Reaction, so it doesn't help with surprise situations, and sammies and adepts that get Reaction boosts with their reflex enhancement will typically have better initiatives.

As for the 24-die combat spell... remember, with SR3 initiative, he gets to do that, at most, once before everyone else gets to go. And if he's identified as the guy who just threw a 24-die combat spell, guess where everyone else's shot is going to be aimed? "Geek the mage first!" is well-worn advice. If the bad guys have magical support, he'll almost certainly be identified, too. When playing mages, I've always made a point of pointing out the enemy mage to my buddies so they can take him out... eliminating the enemy mage means that I'm free to do my thing without interference, without worrying about spell defense or the like. NPC mages probably think the same way.

Most uber-combat types come about, sorry to say, from GM's who either don't know or don't enforce the rules for noncombat actions. I've seen a lot of this, but first, a word from our sponsors.

~brrzzt~
There's nothing wrong with the party including a combat monster. Provided that the character fits in well with the rest of the group, that's why fighters/sammies/brujah... hell, just the ability to have high combat stats itself exists. If your group expects combat, someone good at it should be a given. Provided that they're not too much of a liability in other areas, that is.
~brrzzt~...And back to our program.

Now, the thing that I wonder (and that others have wondered before) is where is he getting the resources to make this character? Somehing has to be minned to minmax, and I get the feeling you're like many GM's who doesn't think to call for social, stealth, or perception skills (among others). Get into the habit of writing such needs into your adventures, ofen pointing out specific places to use them. I'm sure that fellow DS'ers would be happy to help you do this.

Also, keep notes of what happens in-game. If I had a day that was entirely free of causation, I'd have a blast robbing banks and killing those I dislike. After all, once I get home at the end of the day, I'm off scot free, right? Again, the answer is obvious; record specific points in adventure design where if the players do something obvious, they will be screwed (security cameras in the lobby, f'rex), as well as a checklist of things that will leave behind evidence if the players don't think to cover them up (tossing around force 6 spells without taking the time to clean up after yourself is a great example). Players who forget that their enemies (and whoo, do they make lots of them) can be proactive too should get unpleasant reminders. Again, fellow DS'ers can provide a wellspring of ideas.

(I'd also reccomend BECKS, as someone else said above, but that's just a preference thing.)

And finally, if he makes a reasonable combat-oriented character who plays intelligently, rounds out the team, and doesn't have any glaring flaws in either build or action, learn how to deal. A troll with Body 11(12), 4d6+11 initative, and shootin' things (specific weapon I always use) 5(7) +smartgun link is easily doable with just the basic rules, and can spread out to cover other areas, too. So long as he knows when combat is a really bad idea, it shouldn't matter too much if he shines when it does happen.

There's nothing wrong with a combat-oriented character; that's a viable niche to fill, and it seems to be 1) A role he enjoys, and 1) A role lacking among the other players. And combat comes up fairly often in Shadowrun - as soon as you botch a roll on stealth, computer, etc., the heat comes down on you.

This guy's problem is that he only has to shoot down the sub-par opposition that you've been throwing at him, and he hasn't had to deal with any consequences for his actions or any complications from such things as perpetually active foci (hello, wards anyone? Fairly common, and even if his Force: 6 Focus goes right through it, security will still be alerted, which means kiss that run goodbye), to an extremely distinctive appearance (albino gnomes and heavily cybered cyclopes are not a common sight even in a big metropolitan area like the Seattle Sprawl).

So first off, challenge him, without worrying about "balancing" it for the other characters. The other characters should be seeking cover and maybe plinking off an occasional shot, while they let their combat guy do his job. I mean, does his cyclops insist on "driving" one of the rigger's drones, decking in with the decker, or adding his two cents in when the face is trying to negotiate the team's rate?

Secondly, stop giving him a free ride (like letting him claim 12 9's on a spellcasting test - two weeks of "in-game" time notwithstanding, I would insist on seeing those rolls), and make him pay for it if he completely neglects an area such as stealth or etiquette. Don't go out of your way to geek his character or otherwise be unfair, but stop cutting him breaks on the glaring weaknesses that he took in order to pimp out his other stats.

i don't see why you should have to do the work. it's his sheet, have him sit down and show you where his points went.