Really dominating characters tend to be hyperspecialists, though, and most hyperspecialists barely function outside of their niche. Some don't even cover their entire niche. You can make a sniper with 24 dice with his rifle, but what else can he do? Most jobs take more than one skill. The sniper with "only" 18 dice might be less good at shooting, but if he can sneak into areas, climb or swim to get to a good spot, get past a MagLock, spot a tail, straighten out a misaligned barrel on his gun, and escape on his tricked-out racing bike, then he might be considered much more of a professional than the guy who just shoots stuff, no matter how uncannily skilled he might be at doing so. I can see one guy who is really good at something skewing the game a bit, but I have a harder time seeing him dominating the entire game. The hacker, face, and mage still have plenty of stuff they can be doing.

I think a lot of mismatched characters can be avoided if the GM takes the bull by the horns and tells the players what kind of game he wants (or even better, sits down with them and asks what kind of game everyone wants). Despite all of the rules and restrictions of standard character creation, 400 BP characters can still range all up and down the power scale. Too often, some GMs seem to expect players to intuit an "acceptable" level, instead of being more specific about the campaign. Saying "You are starting runners, skills in the 3-4 range, no alphaware, Magic and Resonance capped at 4, but you all get an extra free fixer contact and double the normal starting knowledge skills" would probably get better results. If you let the players know what you want and give them some firm extra rules/guidelines, you will be less likely to have horribly disproportionate power levels.

Some difference should still be expected - some players may want runners who kick ass, and other players may want to play characters who have lots of weaknesses. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you have a whiffle bat to lay down some beatings if the powergamer bullies the other characters, or the roleplayer acts like a self-important drama queen.

It certainly depends on the build, toturi. But it's definitely a possibility, even if only within certain niches (he dominates all social, or is invulnerable in combat, or he hacked everyone's everything…). But if you just want to tell a story, you should just tell a story. Perhaps freeform.

My own perspective is that players (in general, and the ones who aim for 'more powerful') don't aim for 'more powerful' for the purpose of breezing through the challenges to get on with the story. They do it because they want to win, to avoid losing, and achieve more impressive successes (meaning, harder challenges). This is, again, just one kind of player.

For SR4A, if I was looking to achieve more impressive successes, I would look for easier challenges. That way, I am more likely to get critical successes.

I think you can replace "breezing through challenges" with "to win" or to "avoid losing". Winning or avoid losing are simply means to an end. If winning is simply a matter of ego or pride, then it doesn't really matter how they do it, the player will find some way to achieve his end.

Hehe. That's not 'more impressive'. Dominating easy challenges might be fun for you, but most people know if they earned a win, and they know if it was worth winning. That's exactly why 'breezing through' is wrong.

Yeah, if I make a badass character, it's cos I want a badass gaming experience, not because I want to trample over everything.

God-mode is fun for like 30 seconds and then it's boring as hell.





-k

Winning is winning. It doesn't matter how you do it, just that you do. That's exactly why 'breezing through' is right.

That's simply not true for most people. Most people consider cheating wrong or empty, for one thing, and even more people consider a win worthless if there's no challenge. There are whole swathes of literature about worthy foes/challenges, and fair fights.

The times when any win matters is when there's an external motivation, like a prize or something. And even then, bigger prizes usually go with bigger challenges.

But this is not cheating, it might not be a challenge but it isn't cheating. Most people consider a win with no challenge worth less than a win with challenge, but most people consider winning far better than losing, even a win without a challenge.

I never said otherwise. I said that people care about winning in worthy challenges, and that they don't particularly enjoy dominating easy challenges. There was never any question of losing easy challenges, by definition.

Cheating was in reference to "It doesn't matter how you do it"; it does matter.

I will add that I have a peculiarity that stems from decades of convention play. And judging convention games. And running conventions. And serving on the admin staff of convention-based campaigns.

I will make a broke-ass powergamed character, but then proceed not to use him to his fullest power levels unless the rest of the table is similarly optimized, and the GM is ready for hardball.

This is because most convention based ongoing games, like Shadowrun Missions, you never know who's you'll be sitting down to play with, their play styles, or level of gaming expertise.

So at a newbie table, I will deliberately not use the more 'broken' options I have available. Perhaps I'll not activate this or that bit of gear, or refrain from casting the Über-God-Death spell, choosing to use the Merely Horridly Painful spell instead. I'll try to match the dice pools the rest of the table is chucking. More than a few times I have kept quiet when there's a new player attempting a Face character, despite the fact that I could probably roll twice as many Negotiate dice as him. I want everyone at the table to have fun, and I'll get plenty of chances to chuck those dice in future games.

Of course, if I sit down to a table of Prime Runners, all bets are off.



-k

If the goal is to just 'breeze through' challenges to get on with the story, why have the challenges at all? Just narrate how the characters break into a secure facility and escape with the goods.

To me, the story is the challenges, though. How the characters manage at their challenges dictate what path the story takes, and how it develops.

While the goal is to just breeze through the challenges, in practice, it may be another thing altogether. Sometimes the dice don't fall your way. The ultimate goal (for me) is to be able to practically just narrate how the characters break in and got out successfully, to be so good that rolling the dice is simply a pro forma show.

It really depends on what you define as the story. To me the story is the big picture. It is the runners getting in and getting out successfully, it is not about the twists and turns that the runners took because they didn't manage to get pass the security without tripping the alarms.

If you cheat, then you won't win if you get caught, would you? So if you do cheat and win, then it doesn't matter. At least not to you.

Are we perhaps confusing character motivations with player motivations?

Cos my characters probably would hate me if they knew I regularly have them take the harder path cos it's more fun for me.




-k

See, for me, a lot of the interesting story-stuff is the risks characters have to take in order to get the job done. I define the story as being about the characters - their hardships, struggles, successes and failures while trying to stay alive and on top of the game in the shadows. Their stories touch on bigger stories, some of which they are merely pawns in things they don't quite understand, and some of which they are the driving force changing the world around them (even if only on the block where they live). As for the challenges, instead of just breezing through 'penetrate security, steal the prototype' every time I'd much rather see that the runners come up with a clever way to solve a problem and circumvent tight security, impossible odds and superior firepower by seeking out the weak spots. All those little bumps on the road, risks, rewards and the dramatic moments that occur among them is the highlight of the story.

toturi, I'm not saying you don't feel that way, or that you're wrong to do so. I'm saying that, by my experience, your taste is not the predominant one. If you just want to narrate yourself, that's very different from how most people play tabletops; instead, it sounds like freeform. Clearly other posters agree. That's all I'm saying: 'be aware that not everyone thinks as you do'.

As for cheating (again)… don't plan to get caught. But that's not the point. The point is that most people have a sense of accomplishment (if not honor) that means cheating gives you a 'bad' win. Again, this isn't always true, and not for all people (in classical myths, the heroes cheated constantly). But I'm confident that it's a common view.

That is so wrong on so many levels... But it does allow me to understand you a bit better.

This ^^^^^^^ So Much This ^^^^

See here is where im a little odd i guess. you have to really define cheating, because for me (in character) it is perfectly acceptable, applauded even, to sneak up behind a security guard and take him out, but many people would consider that cheating.

I get that we are talking about people with so many dice that the chances of them failing are minimal, but I would have to say, thats all about how its ran. A good GM should be able to compensate for this (which i believe has already been stated )

and as far as worrying more about narrating the story then worrying about the dice pool, well.....go play Dresden Shadowrun is about the dicepool and its modifiers, no doubt about it, but its more than that. Its about finding a good way to explain and reason with your GM to provide you with the modifiers you might need.

For example, if your in a firefight and the person your shooting at has cover, well, he is getting extra dice to dodge. If you have shot at him and missed several times, perhaps his cover is starting to chip away, and thus provide less benefit. Or mabye he is popping out at the same spot every time to take his shots. Push your GM to be descriptive and pay attention to what he/she says. All of these things force both players and GM into a more intricate and colorfull game.


But thats just one humble opinion

Peace!

That's my point, Vykos: it's only cheating if you think it is, because we're talking about personal sense of accomplishment. I only mentioned cheating in the first place because he said "Winning is winning. It doesn't matter how you do it, just that you do." For many people, there are limits to this statement being true, that's all. No moral judgment or anything. I don't know if anyone but a paladin would call honest ninja backstabbing 'cheating', though.

AFAIK, toturi is saying the GM *shouldn't* compensate for the dice monster. To me, that seems like a radical concept that contrasts with everything I've ever heard about tabletop.

There's an old saying, "That which is given has no value."

The phrase signifies that unless something is earned, acquired or achieved legitimately, it has no real meaning.

Winning when there's no challenge is a win that is given rather than earned. It's hollow, without substance.

Most "powergamers" I've met (and having attended conventions for a couple of decades now, that's hundreds at least), they don't want easy wins. They just want an edge, and expect or at least hope the GM will give them a challenge worthy of their abilities.



-k

I feel differently. The powergames I've met don't seem to want a challenge so much as they want to be better then their fellow players. Given the chance, powergamers would rather abuse the hell out of poorly written and vague rules then be given the option to make a 500bp character with the rule "Don't be a dick.'

Eh, i think those fall more into the realm of Munchkin.

And ahh yes...the good old Dont be a Dick rule, if only more people would follow it!

I'm late to this discussion but I refer to this as "Superman Syndrome" - where one guy is playing Superman and everyone else is playing the cops. What is a challenge for the cops Superman can do with half his powers tied behind his back, whereas what is challenging for Superman will geek the cops.

EDIT:


The Blood Lord I'm playing now was intended to be a supremely powerful character that I held in reserve for the rest of the group while I provided area support with rigged drones and a mook (it is quite easy to be good at rigging and hacking simply from gear). I'm tossing 25 dice for Negotiations, 23 for Leadership, and have about 25 dice for my Influence and Compulsion Powers - which I refer to my Win Buttons. I actually dislike using them because nothing can resist them. I'm tossing 16 dice for Spellcasting (I know, it's low... for now...) and with the spell loadout he has he has combat and utility covered. With face, hacking, combat, and spells taken care of I have everything but stealth taken care of, and because of my options I can choose other things than sneaking.

But I roleplay the crap out of him, and I keep him in reserve as much as possible because the table he's on does not quite reach his level. He's a nearly narcissistic monster - literally a monster that looks human (nosferatu). For example, we went to the Barrens in the last session and I was walking around in my 2,000 suit, knowing that no one would mess with me (and no one did). And he's saved the group at least twice now - once by having the enemy Magic 9 mage Stunbolt her own team to death, and again by using crowd control to keep two team members alive and mitigate things while the rest of the team dropped, allowing those two teammates to finish off the enemies.