I understand you're trying to troll but you're just wrong. Yes all the things are different. yes you still use your eyes to see the computer and your fingers to imput data, but everything has changed. Up to and including you have Ipads with on screen keyboards or voice controls. All the insides are different. All the programming is different'. You're acting like "Oh. Computers are computers. We can do everything we do today on a computer from the 70s" and that's laughingly silly.

Computers from he 70s have less memory than watches today. You're trying to act like "Oh well they're made of plastic and metal so they're the SAME!!" no. Not even close.

Pepsi, Fatum, Cochise, you guys need to give it a break. Go back to your corners and find something else to talk about please.

If everything should come at some kind of cost, and with the infected population going...crazy...? And since the fluff implies Revitalization from Augmentation is based off of HMHVV, maybe these people should have a risk of turning in to ghouls, vampires, or some other creatures of the night? Sure would be an interesting price for getting your essence back. But it might be too extreme of a price...

.... or at least, having some sort of mental / emotional instability issues?

I'm rather looking forward to seeing how they balance the trolls in. I like playing them but they did end up a bit funky.

I can't say (NDA and whatnot), but there was a push to just give them a new statline that wouldn't break things, but the No Retcons guideline won the day. There were probably ten different versions of how to fix them floating around at one point, but it finally got whittled down until what you'll see.

It's really hard to balance a ten foot tall dude who can lift a motorcycle in one hand and a fridge in the other, I gotta tell ya.

Orks are also hard, and in some ways harder than Trolls. Trolls bend teh system so hard that it threatens to break, but the mechanics are right there ... big, strong, dermal deposits, yadda yadda, but Orks have a factor that Trolls don't quite, and that's racism. Mechanical advantages are clean, but if the GM runs a game where Orks are harassed on a regular basis, can expect to be pulled aside and searched daily, etc, then being an Ork has a big social penalty. If the GM instead runs a cleaner game where racism doesn't crop up, but Orks are given a discount when compared to their power level, then you get a "Free stuff!" situation where it's stupid to be a human if being an Ork gives you bonuses a human can match for a larger investment. (See also, the board sections about optimization, where Ork fills many roles in 4th because you get 50 points of attributes for a 20 pt cost.) ... That's oddly harder to handle than the pure mechanics of the Troll.

Game design. Watching veterans do it is impressive.

Trolls have racism against them, too. Just, not quite as often right to their faces (because, you know, "lift a motorcycle in one hand" and all).

Your observations on how GM-dependent the social downside of being an Ork or Troll are, IMO, spot-on accurate.

...

I do think that a rethink on the cost of metahumans needs to be re-examined.

Every +1 to an attribute is worth more than 10BP, because it also increases the Maximum and the Augmented Maximum. I'll guestimate a +15BP per +1 attribute.

Every -1 to an attribute only affects the maximum, so it's only woth -5BP, IMO.

Flipside, the Human Edge trait needs to be accounted for; it's a +1 to an attribute, so it's worth about 15BP by the above logic. So we'll shave 15BP off of every race cost out there ("that's why humans cost 0 instead of 15").

We'll ignore thermo and lowlight; yeah, they should maybe cost something, but ... eh.

ORK:
+3 Body, +45BP
+2 Strength, +30BP
-1 Charisma, -5BP
-1 Logic, -5BP
----------------------
65BP

A damned sight more costly than the 20BP you're actually charged. Also a bit pricey, BUT ... hey, remember that thing about social stigma? Put it right in the character; make mechanics for it. A die-pool penalty (-1 or -2) for all social interactions with NPCs who are not especially Ork-friendly, and a 10% or 20% across-the-board increase in the ¥ cost of everything .... lifestyles included.

Does that sound like it's worth, oh, 25BP?

It'd result in an Ork costing 40BP. Significantly more than SR4, yet, still IMO in the range of "I'd play one".

Why would th ey get charged more for everything, Pax? That's silly.

First: I did forget to lop 15 points off for the Edge thing, though.

So baseline is 50BP, not 65BP. Tone the penalties for discrimination down slightly (go with -1 die and 10%, the lower end of my guesses), and call the cost of being an Ork 35BP.



Second: how, exactly, are they "paying more for everything" ...? How are they paying more for anything ...?

Remember, that the +2 Strength an Ork gets, is not just 2 points of Strength. It's also an increase of +2 to their Racial Maximum, and that in turn is an increase of +3 (net) to their Augmented Maximum.

The increases to Racial and Augmented maximums are worth something. As it is, I think I'm low-balling the price at only 5BP per +1 to racial maximum, but as not every character will use every attribute, it's a risk I'm willing to take.



...


Let's jump tracks for a second, over to Dwarf. Because they've got a handy dandy "7" racial max for one of their attributes.

By my outline above, the Dwarf's racial cost is based in part on valuing their +1 Will at +15BP

To match that, the human not only has to pay for the attribute point, but ALSO has to pick up the "Exceptional Attribute" quality. That quality costs 20BP and occupies more than half the available allotment for positive qualities.

So, BP wise ... the Dwarf pays his Racial cost (15BP of which would be for that +1 Will), plus 65BP. Net cost, counting only Will, of 80BP.

The Human? 95BP. That's 20BP to get Exceptional Attribute, 50BP to raise Will to 6, then 25BP for the final point.

So, only for Will, the Human has just paid 15BP more than the Dwarf. For the same attribute. Using the very guidelines you say make the Dwarf 'pay more' ...!

...

Explain to me how that works, please? Explain how 80BP > 95BP ...?

...

Oh, and keep in mind .. the human can only have another 15 points of Positive Qualities. Which are probably already occupied, by being a Magician. (We ARE talking abut a character pushing Will to the max and beyond, after all.) Whereas the Dwarf? Could still pick up some more qualities.

Mechanically imposed universal racism is a bad thing, Pax - besides, it's not like trolls and orks are the only ones who have to deal with it.

And when he said "charged more", I think he was referring to the nuyen cost increases.

Ehh.. I may be the odd one out, but I rather dislike game balance screwin' up stuff. I think it should be on the GM to keep people from gettin' stupid with their chars. So trolls should be bigger and stronger and stuff. If your group only plays 100% trolls because of it, that's a player/gm problem. Not a broken game. People are going to twink or mini/max or what ever you wanna call it in any game system. Balance or not. They'll find a way. So why hobble the players that don't do that, by trying to make it 'breaking the rules' to do? They're gonna find their way to do it anyway 'legally'. lol

I understand many games try and balance races and classes and stuff so someone doesn't just run away with everything. I just think that's the Players/GM job. Not the book.

3 to 4 meter tall trolls with gorilla arms and armored skin are going to be tougher than 2.5 foot gnomes. Trying to balance them so they're equal is just silly to me.

Notionally, I disagree with the idea that "the GM can deal with it" means that it's acceptable to leave something to be dealt with by the GM.

And I love the notions of balance some people have. It's hilarious. Balance isn't about making things equal, but making them equally viable/valuable. There's very, very little reason to play a Dwarf in SR4A, for example. Intuition based mage? 1 die for Drain isn't worth losing the benefits orks get, or the extra spirits elves get to bind. Logic or Charisma? Once again, better off an elf. Anything you want the Body and Strength for, that Reaction penalty will hurt - a Troll for the same purpose may lose a couple Agility dice, all told, but they're getting way more for it (plus, how's the dwarf rigger thing make sense when they're the only ones with a reaction penalty...).

We want better rules in SR, not worse ones. The idea that we shouldn't try to fix broken/unbalanced rules because "they're gonna find their way to do it anyway" is bad, and you should feel bad

That's fine; I was looking at imposing those penalties, as a way to keep Orks, Trolls, or whatever cheaper.

So absent those social penalties ... the races should cost more. Using the quick setup I outlined above, Orks would be 50BP, instead of 35BP. One way, or the other, they shuld be balanced.


If that's the case - discrimination, that's why.






IMO, stuff is screwed up more often (and more thoroughly) by a lack of balance between PCs.


.... that's completely not the problem. The problem comes when two people want to make characters, but one of them gets more character for the same resources.

In D&D 3.X terms, it's like ... everyone in the group has to play PHB races, except that one guy who gets to play a Drow "because they're cool" ... and the GM doesn't use Level Adjustments. (For the uninitiated: Drow in 3E are a +2 race; that is, a Drow with 1 character level, is the equivalent of a basic race with three character levels - and the XP costs progress at a 1:1 rate; the same drow with 8 character levels, has the same XP total as a basic-race character with ten levels.)


Thirty-four years of roleplaying have taught me the exact opposite - if it isn't done right in the book it can be, and IMO should be, a gigantic headache for the GM.


Tougher, yes. Somewhat. (Remember, Gnomes are dwarves, and get +1 Body. Also, gnomes average around 4 feet tall, not 2'6"; they generally pass for eight-to-twelve-year old kids from a distance, not pre-school toddlers.)

Better overall, however ... no. The troll should pay for that "tougher, stronger, bigger". She should pay with character generation resources. And the price should be fair, not only to her, but to the other players, too.

So, let's compare Trolls to Dwarves/Gnomes, using the guidelines I already posted upthread:

TROLL (RAW cost 40BP)
Human Edge Adjustment ... -15
Body +4 ... +60
Agility -1 ... -5
Strength +4 ... +60
Charisma -2 ... -10
Intuition -1 ... -5
Logic -1 ... -5
Reach +1 ... +5?
Dermal Deposits ... +5?
-------------------------------
My suggested cost: 100 BP

DWARF (RAW cost 25BP)
Human Edge Adjustment ... -15
Body +1 ... +15
Reaction -1 ... -5
Strength +2 ... +30
Willpower +1 ... +15
-------------------------------
My suggested cost: 40 BP

So. Go on, make your big, tough troll. I'll make a small, wiry little Gnome ... and have sixty more BP left forOTHER things, than you do. Maybe gear. Maybe skills. Maybe a list of contacts longer than my stubby little arms. Either way, in the end, your PC and my PC will be of equal total value.

Because as a general rule, noone should get free stuff that isn't given to everyone else at the table, too.






If the metas were all priced appropriately, that might be less true ...

I'm on Pax side. Prices should be right.

I particulary emphasis on that:




IMO, only games that are centered on fluff purely and with few crunch can unbalance their character creation.

Mmmmmmmm .... not strictly accurate. Some games can and do work, despite intentional intraparty imbalance.

One example is Ars Magica. Characters come in three power levels - Magus, Companion, and Grog (from highest to lowest power). Ideally, every player has one of each ... but for any given story arc, not everyone will be playing characters of the same power scale. Perhaps Bob plays his magus, Sue and Joe play their Grogs, and Adam plays his Companion. Next story, though, the mix of characters could be completely different.

The reason I think Ars works, of course, is that though characters may not be perfectly balanced, players are - everyone has a magus, everyone has a grog, and so on. Each game may be mix-and-match, but the campaign as a whole is balanced between players.

So, for the sake of debate, let's assume that Pax's numbers are correct and that of your 400 BP character, it'd cost 100 BP to be a Troll. How many people would play one with a "Troll Tax" that high? Would this make 'Troll' an archetype more than a race? (That is to say, instead of Troll Face, you'd just see 'Troll' and know what the archetype was.) What would you have to do to sweeten the deal? Will the high cost and inflated stats encourage the big beefy Troll or would it encourage 'Woody Allen' trolls who take the minimum attributes and call it a day? Are either of those a design goal? Similarly, would the 50 BP Ork snuff a desire to play one? Would this push more people into playing humans and would a more human-centric Shadowrun be a goal you'd want to see?

We'll let everyone be a game designer for a minute and chew that one over. The math of a metatype isn't that hard, but the game design fallout from it has a pretty big ripple effect. Would spending a fourth of your BP on being a Troll essentially erase the Troll as a character concept? Is that good or bad and why?

I will admit that probably, people would not play Trolls nearly as often as they do now.

I will also say that things like trolls paying more for wearable gear, and having to get vehicles or held gear adapted for their size, might be worth a bit of a discount - as might anti-metahuman discrimination in the setting. But that discount would probably still be mild.

...

I'd also like to point out, that just as metatype costs can fluctuate? So can the pool of resources itself. If my back-of-the-napkin math were to be a stopping point to playing Trolls, the answer doesn't have to be "lower the cost of trolls". It could instead be increase the starting pool.

So, also ask yourself: would you pay those 100 points, out of 450? Out of 500? ^_^

Under SR3, a Troll/Elf cost 10 out of about 120 Pts or so.
That's less than 10% of the starting Points.
Dorf/Ork cost 5 Pts.
Humans cost nothing.

Why go with a fixed ammount instead of a percentile approach here?

Well... In our games, as an example, Humans are prevelant. We see the occasional Troll or Ork, dependant upon Concept, and an occasional Dwarf (Rare) or Elf (Almost Nonexistant). Humans Far outweight the other metatypes in their presence as PC's. I think that each race (in SR4A) is fairly well balanced as it is (Yes, even the Oddly costed Metavariants). Nothing stands out as a MUST take (like I said, at our table; I do get that Orks are the best option mechanically). I CAN tell you that if the prices were adjusted up as _Pax_ suggests (for Balance purposes), we would never see other Metatypes at all at our table. They are generally considered about right as it is, raise the Troll by 60 points, and the Ork by 30 and they would disappear as a character concept due to rapidly shrinking Chargen resources (Assuming similar rules to SR4A at Chargen). *shrug*

SR3 used the priority based system, which IMO worked better than point build systems.

The point build system was introduced in the Runners Companion, which was already published under SR2 (100 points, 10 for being metahuman), and republished under SR3 (120 points, 10 points for elf/troll, 5 points for dwarf/ork).

Priority System allowed such nonsense as Adepts with 1 Million Nuyen for example . .

The core rules used an upgraded version of the original priority system (different and lower priorities for metahumans) and I do not share your opinion that said priority system worked better, simply because it heavily favourized certain priority combinations, while completely prohibiting others. I could have agreed to a certin extend if SR3 had included the Sum to 10 variant of the priority system that SR2 knew.



Which still makes it a SR3 character generation system and could be used as reference

@ Stahlseele: ~erm~ the point build system did allow the same "nonsense" (and it even allowed for 1 million NuYen fullmages). Matter of fact: The priority system favored magically active characters als long as you didn't want "impossible" resource combinations (like said 1 million NuYen mage) while the point build system favored mundane / cybered characters.

A possibility, but then you have to see if this bump inflates anything else. What would a human Street Sam do with another 50 BP? Or 100? Would a mage with another 100 BP overpower the Troll? If you stay at 400 BP, should 'Big beefy guy' *become* an archetype? You always have art floating around of a giant troll with a spinning-barrel gun... would "Troll Heavy" have a place at the table as a design consideration? We normally think of race in terms of a race-class combination (Elf decker, Ork mercenary, etc) ... would the Troll be able to divest itself from that and stand alone as "The Troll", generally erasing concepts like Troll Shaman or Troll Decker?

Do you give a cost discount on Strength, the dump stat of 4th edition, to bring the cost in line? Is Thermographic Vision worth more, less, or the same as Lowlight Vision? Do you give a discount for racism? If so, how much? Do you want a mechanical penalty in plain text or do you put it in the hands of a GM, some of whom will give the race a big penalty, some who won't give it a large enough one, and some of which will get it about right?

As you can imagine, opinions vary.

Which in my experience would mean "never". Trolls are large, slow and dumb, their huge Strength and Body do little to compensate that. Swinging an I-beam is nice, but actually hitting something while evading enemy fire would be even better.


And the problem with priority was the extremely coarse granularity. If you didn't need the full amount of cash from your priority level, all you could do was pile up grenades in your flat (or lose 90% of the money).

And, I'd have to ask...so?

I preferred Sum-To-Ten myself, which allowed for a little more flexibility.

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying don't fix rules. I'm saying you aren't going to balance a 10 foot troll that can pick up a fridge in one hand and throw it, with a 2.5 foot gnome, with out getting stupid funky in the attempt.

Life sucks. Not all things are balanced. Trying to enforce unrealistic balance for game equality is something I don't like. It makes the game seem silly when everything has to be balanced. Again, GM's enforce balance or not. These boards are full of people(Not me. lol I'm not skilled that way) That can take that 2.5 foot gnome, and by the rules in the books put one together that could pick up a troll and beat it to death against a wall. And that's with the rules and 'balance'. When that can happen the concept of artificially trying to force game balance seems silly.

What's up with all this talk of gnomes?
Makes me feel like punting...

Again it comes back around to "Why do they all have to be equal?" Maybe it's my playstyle but I don't mini/max stuff. I role play lots of stuff out more than Roll dice at things. That's the aspect of RPGs I like. Not having the biggest gun, best cyber, on the best race, all optimized to thee decimal points to the right for the absolute 'best' of everything. I know some people play exclusivly like that. My point is they're going to do that if you enforce artifical balance or if you don't.

It's a player/gm thing. If some guy's screwing up the game due to how he's building his character, he's going to find a way to do that in the rules or no.



It's choices when you make your character. If you want the 'more' then make your character that way. or.. don't. Be an adult and realize if you build a character one way it's going to be different than a guy that buildds his another way.

Again, I build characters to play. Not just spreadsheets of numbers and equasions. I think I've played one human in shadowrun? Ever? lol I'm used to being penalized to play the sorts I like. I take that penalty in stride because I want to play that ____.



But again, we're back to the "Well if you want a Drow, play a drow. If you choose to play a weaker race, that's your choice" I don't see why everyone has to be equal. The universe isn't like that. Trying to artificially enforce it in the game, dumbs things down, not inflates the others up. If Drow are dumbed down to be equal to the normal humans, the Drow arn't as they're described. in SR, if My Troll has to be penalized, just so he's balanced with a gnome, it doesn't make the game better. It's an artificial limitating the trolls, just so people playing Gnomes don't feel weaker. Well if you choose to play a gnome. That's part of the package.



in 22 years of Role playing, I've never played in a system that couldn't, and wasn't, gamed, and rules twisted, by those that game the system and twist rules. It's up to the GM to allow or disallow such things and keep the game from getting stupid. People that are going to abuse the system, abuse it no matter what 'balance' is built in or not. So I don't like being limited due to those sorts. Honestly, look at some of the threads here and the builds and stuff people put together. lol (Not all, but the ones I'm talking about are easy to pick out.)



It depends on what you mean by "overall", but in general.. I don't agree. I'm sorry. if you play a character the size of an 8 year old, you chose to play it. The 'numbers' and 'rules' shouldn't make them equal to a 10 foot tall 400 pound mountain of muscle. To make it so, is an artifical limitation that is silly



Eh.. Kinda sorta. To me, it's "Play your character" and if you play a troll, play the troll. Don't make me play a retarded Troll, just so the gnome the size of an 8 year old is equal to me. HE/SHE chose to play the gnome. (( And it's not just trolls and Gnomes. they're just two polar extremes that illistrate the point. it goes for anything.))



And you're missing my point. If you want to play the troll, play the troll. If you want to play the gnome, play the gnome. Each has it's own things. My point is, my troll shouldn't be weakened down just because there ARE gnomes and everything has to be equal or someone playing a gnome gets butthurt about it all.



I disagree with this too. If you want to play a Dwarf, play a dwarf. Have fun with it. Own it. Sure your dwarf might not be able to throw cars (( though some might)) but you know that going in. You're playing a dwarf. Chances are he's not going to be the Power Forward for the Seattle Basket ball team. Why? Cuz he's a dwarf.

And that's where my objection comes in. The 'Game balance' that would force a dwarf to be 100% equal to that ultra tall elf metavariant (I forget what they're called) Or a "Giant" Troll Metavariant, on the Basket ball court. Now that's an extreme. I get it, but that's my objection. The Giant and the Elf are going to dunk all over the Dwarf. "Game balance" would say that the dwarf and the troll and the elf were all equal on the court. Which is silly if you look at it.

Now.. try and take one of those Giants or Elves through an airvent or a cramped tunnel or under a car or something. Should the troll and elf be just as equal there? Course not. So why do the 'numbers' that build the character have to be equal?

If Game Balance isn't an issue, then there's no point in bothering with all the chargen beancounting, and players should just choose attributes, skills and gear, no?

Ehh... to a point. In a way. Yes. Sure there has to be some limitations, or you'd end up with giant combat monsters with every possible thing maxed out 100% of the time.

But making that Gnome that's the size of an 8 year old be 100% equal to the 10 foot troll flipping cars over is an artificial limitation that I don't like.


That all being said, I play my character types. If I have to 'pay extra' to play an orc, or a troll, or a Night one. I pay that cost. As for me, the character type I'm trying to pay, is more important than having the best of everything.

I just don't like being penalized for doing such. As pointed out above, when you start assessing higher and higher penalties for anything other than human, they fall out of the game. Then it comes back around to "Well you can play a troll, if you want your character totally screwed because of it" or "You can play a dwarf, but you're going to be totally hosed if you do" Which I don't think the game should be like.

I'd say it's a question of how precise that "balance" has to be. It's quite obvious that some try to aim for the smallest extend of tolerance on game mechanic levels, while others are willing to take broader ranges

This is not the point of game balance at all. Of course, among an elf, a dwarf and a troll, the troll would make the best urban brawl heavy. The point of game balance is giving the others something they're better in: like, the elf would be the best dancer of them, and the dwarf the best drinker, or something to the effect. Nobody's saying that metatypes and classes should be equal in every thing they can be doing - they should instead have roughly an equal number of things they're the best at. Roughly the same amount of usefulness to a runner team, if you wish.

See I'm cool with that. Totally.

The trick is 'rules' that make it so. Instead of what you've written... we get the "DUrr Hurr pamcakes" View of Trolls and Metatypes other than humans on the fringe due to penalties that come from the 'balance' trying to be enforced.

If your catch phrase is "Everything has a price," everything needs a price. Ideally one that approximates its value, I think.

Still, for my part, I like to have balance with wiggle room in my games. Without the whole thing caving in on an imbalance. Like INWO over, say, VTAS. Or GURPS over Rifts. Or BattleTech over (original) Heavy Gear. Etc, usw, sono ta.

Not at all. The thinking in the current point-buy system, and the options offered so far, is this: so we're making the trolls the biggest and the toughest, which means it'll be easier for them to fill certain roles in a team, and gives them an obvious advantage. Nobody's suggesting we make gnomes as tough as trolls (as your previous comments seem to suggest); what is discussed are the ways to make gnomes as useful while not being as tough, whether by making them more agile or leaving them more BP for skills, or what have you.

As for the game balance itself: I am not really sure why all the attributes have the same cost. For example, high strength is needed pretty much exclusively for melee fighters, high charisma only for faces, some mages and technos, and high reaction, body and agility for everyone. Shouldn't that be reflected in their price, and thus the price of metatypes that change them?

What if attributes were closer in value, I don't know how far you'd have to bend the rules to make str relevant, but surely there's better solutions then having agility for pretty much everything...

I think it's easier to make str cheaper than change the laws of reality so that they'd require more str tests :ь

Or put Close Combat, Unarmed and Armed, back to the STR Stat instead of Agility.

There's other ways about it, like you know those optional rules with str and recoil? or have it affect you carrying armour and such, sure you'd still be a sammy type for wanting str but atleast that akimbo gun bunny would want some aswell next to her 12+ agility.
There's other stats aswell that could use some love, like logic... Maybe putting some practical application on knowledge skills (I mean besides being good in game shows...)
Not necessarily rewriting as much as expanding...
But as I've said before, I'm no game designer, so I don't get down to the nitty gritty with numbers or concrete solutions

Or put a stronger opposition so that shadowrunners more often get to run.

Some people think they can outrun me.
Maybe, maybe.
I've yet to meet one that can outrun bullet.

In your calculations of relative BP value, you entirely forgot the almost unavoidable but purely role-played troll disadvantages "doesn't fit behind cover" and "weighs as much as a house, so often won't be dragged to safety if unconscious". These two elements combined eventually made them VERY unpopular in our campaign, far more so than your "calculated" advantages (wohoo, 60 bonus BP!) would imply they would be.

Every player seated at the table, unless the group agrees otherwise beforehand, should start with the same pool of resources for making characters. Each unit of those resources should be worth the same to each player. It's part of the basic social contract that forms the group in the first place.


"Balance" does not mean "min/max", nor does it mean "powergame". It doesn't mean "have the bext ____", either.

It means - you and I will end up equally able to be in the spotlight, it means you and I will be equally able to do awesome things (where "awesome" means whatever our group likes to see, be it Action-movie stuff, or deep drama, or whatever).


But, that's not how it works in 3E D&D. You throw off the power curve of the entire party. You throw off every single encounter the group has.

A Challenge Rating (CR) 3 encounter is appropriate for a party of four Level 3 characters. If one of them is Level 3 and a Drow, then he's really level FIVE, not three. The whole encounter gets just a bit too easy (especially for him). OTOH, an appropriate encounter for HIM, CR5, will be unfairly difficult for the rest of the party. And no, splitting the difference won't work either, because CR4 will be too risky / difficult for those others, too.


... fine. You and I will play a Shadowrun game. You get your 400BP character. I'm going to get a 2,000-karma character, plus I get to be Awakened and emerged at the same time and I want to be a Drake, but also Infected. That's all cool with you, right? BEcause, you know, it's what I want to play ... right?


It does .... for the guy playing a Gnome.

But, here's the thing: your troll isn't being penalised! Whereas, using my (imprecise, but for the sake of argument) numbers: the Troll gets to be a Troll with 300BP of "other stuff". The Gnome gets to be a Gnome, with 360BP of "other stuff". And you are no more entitled to be butthurt about the gnome getting those extra BP compared to you, than the gnome's player is entitled to be butthurt that your troll is bigger and stronger.


The thing is, if the Gnome is weaker, then it should have a commensurately lower PRICE TAG. That's all anyone is asking for: for each race to be priced appropriately.


Not equal in strength - equal in FUN.

Sure, you've got the big strong Troll. Anything that calls for strength, durability, or sheer size - that's your turn in the spotlight, and I'll be over there on the sidelines, munching popcorn and waving a "Go, Troll dude!" pennant.

My Gnome is a rigger, and a bit of a hacker. Anything that would best be done by a drone, by the application of EW skills, or with a bit of low grade hacking? That's my turn in the spotlight, and I am as superior to you there, as you are superior to me in the brawn-and-brute-strength department.

Balanced, equal, not identical.

It's a thing called "niche protection". Every character should have a niche they fit into, a role in which they are the Star of the Show. The spotlight should move from niche to niche, so that everyone gets a chance to be the center-of-attention during gameplay. And everyone should be equally able to shine in their niche, as everyone else - with a given amount of "awesome" costing THE SAME, for any and all of those characters.


"Equal" does not mean "identical".

The Gnome doesn't get balanced by being as tough and as strong as the Troll. It's balanced because, after picking their Race .... the Gnome has more CharGen resources left to spend on other things. The Troll player spent some extra resources, to be extra big-tough-and-strong. Fine. But the Gnome will have a little more to spend on gear ... or on skills ... or on being a magician ... or whatever else. That is balance.


"Well you can play a Gnome, if you want to be toally screwed [for picking something so weak]" ... Pot. Kettle. You know the rest.

Sure you can. With properly-proportional costs, for one. By finding some other benefits to give tothe Gnome that are not reliant on size and muscle mass.

And, AGAIN: Shadowrun gnomes are not 2.5 feet tall. How many ten year old kids do you know, who are under four feet tall?? Gnomes are the size of KIDS, not babies or toddlers.


That's because GNOMES ARE NOT TWO AND A HALF FEET TALL. They're a variant of Dwarves, they tend to be the SAME HEIGHT as Dwarves: four to five feet tall.

It's also because, LOLcybernetics.






Yes. And these IMO are good things - for example, my houserule was that the limit on Worn Armor was "STR+BOD", not "BODx2".

Suddenly, even pure gun-fu samurai want a Strength of 4+, instead of dumpstatting it to, say, 2.






Absolutely.

My estimations were more about the process, and proportions. I didn't try, nor pretend, to account for EVERY variable.

Over all I agree with _Pax._ here. I think his back-of-the-napkin math may be off just a little, but it’s really close. Metas make up a small percent of the overall population of the planet, adjusting their costs will likely (Sorry I have no math to back up this claim) make them fall into similar numbers (percent wise) in the shadows too.

Would I pay 100 of my 400 BP to make a Troll? Yes if that was my character concept and trolls cost that much to make. Would I skimp in places to make the cost work, yes because I’d have to. If the shoe fits, wear it.

I'm also of the opinion that Magic (and Resonance) should be more expensive. I'm not sure how much more expensive, but with no functional maximum power level for those two stats, they are wholly unbalanced. Most every game I have played in (since starting playing SR in 1989/90) has ended up being "MagicRun" within a few game sessions because everyone saw that Magic would never hit a power ceiling. There needs to be either a hard limit on Magic (and Resonance) or the cost for it needs to be much higher.

Something did just occur to me that Pax isn't accounting for: Freely spent resources are more valuable than preallocated ones. Thus, a certain discount needs to be taken off the BP 'cost' of a metatype attribute bonus. For example, if you'r playing an elf gunbunny, that Charisma bonus isn't actually worth anything to you.

Pepsi_Jedi: Balance is not making things the same. Balance is making things equally valuable. If you make a Troll and play directly to the strengths of being a Troll, while I make a dwarf and play directly to the strengths of being a dwarf, our characters should be just as powerful. Powerful, however, is a vague term - it doesn't mean that they can do the same things, but rather that the things that they do have similar levels of influence.

That's a good point, but I did account for it somewhat - by deeply discounting the "increase maximum" side of a Metatype attribute bonus. Normally, increasing the maximum costs 20 points; I only assessed 5, chiefly because not every character will care to push any given attribute to or near it's maximum. The exact value of each attribute point, and it's commensurate increase to racial maximums, obviously could use some tweaking. Maybe it should be 8BP for the point, and 4BP for the increase to maximum, for example. *shrug*

...

With that said, I personally prefer Karmagen, now. I used to prefer the Priority system, especially the somewhat-relaxed "sum to 15" approach; my main reason in SR2 and SR3 for loving the resource system is that there was an intermediary step between 1M¥ and 400K¥ (specifically, IIRC: 650K¥). Sometimes 400K wasn't quite enough for what I wanted/needed, but 1M was almost always over-the-top excessive.

The priority system worked "better" in that is was faster, easier, almost as flexible, and less prone to breakage than points. Compared to the SR4.5 system, it's many times better in all those categories except flexibility, but a properly designed template system isn't that far behind.