Stahlseele
Jul 7 2014, 05:21 PM
So, i brought this up once again in a thread about essence and i got curious.
What are your experiences?
Does it happen at all?
When/where does it happen if at all?
How circumstancial is it?
Is the BGC Table being used and if so, why is there no BGC of 1 or 2 in almost everystreet of a Megaplex and what is the justification for that?
Have you been fucked over by sudden BGC aside from the BGC creating spells?
How so?
How do you deal with BGC?
ALL EDITIONS WELCOME
Mantis
Jul 7 2014, 06:35 PM
Magic is supposed to reach a level, like water, over most of the earth. BGC is spikes in that level. Unless there is something ongoing in a city, it will eventually just level out, with the spikes remaining around a recent murder, etc, as suggested in Street Magic. So whole cities don't get a BGC, just areas that warrant it. Just like you need to do something to create and maintain an Aspected Domain, you need to do something to create a BGC and if you want it to remain you need to keep doing that thing.
That said, any magician without Cleansing is kind of asking for it in our games. That's the first or second meta-magic they grab in most cases. Usually because they go to places where folks are creating that spike in the mana level. So as runners they encounter BGC more than most would but once they go home, things go back to whatever passes for normal.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Jul 7 2014, 08:54 PM
We run into it enough that I always account for it during Character Generation. It is not universally pervasive, per se, but it is common enough that if you don't plan for it, it bites you in the ass.
Our current campaign started low level (350 BP/656 Karma using SR4A). Yet any PC currently remade would consider BGC. So I voted that.
One way to deal with it is getting higher magic than usually necessary. "Disadvantage": You are overpowered without BGC. It also tends to get excessive preparing for high BGC. Better: Get Filtering/Cleansing. We houseruled Filtering (do short-term stuff for yourself) to come before Cleansing (removing the problem for everyone).
Does it happen at all?
- Oh, yes.
When/where does it happen if at all? How circumstancial is it?
- We play an Earthdawn cross-over campaign. THIS. IS. CORRUPTION. With graphical description and carrying over to technomancers, too.
Is the BGC Table being used and if so, why is there no BGC of 1 or 2 in almost everystreet of a Megaplex and what is the justification for that?
- No. Where can that table be found?
Have you been fucked over by sudden BGC aside from the BGC creating spells?
- Comes with the territory, so yes.
How so?
- The Enemy and other astral threats are not stupid and mask their effects. Step inside the opponents lair, deal with the consequences.
How do you deal with BGC?
- Conjuring/summoning beforehand and Filtering, mostly. Being slightly ahead of the power curve outside BGC also helps, being below during final encounters gives the mundanes a chance to shine.
binarywraith
Jul 7 2014, 09:30 PM
Depends on who's GMing. I personally get really tired of MagicRun and never being able to play a decker, so I make background count a known and feared thing for my players to emphasize just how fucked up the Sprawl is.
Stahlseele
Jul 7 2014, 10:44 PM
@Ryu:
SR3 Magic in the Shadows Page 83 it starts on BGC and on PAge 84 is a little Table:
BGC1:
Any Place where Background Count was briefly or recently generated; (interpretation by me: means BGC does not go away, if it has ever been created?)
The Site of a heated argument or passionate affair, a magicians convention or a bar frequented by the Awakened, an alienating corporate office environment, a hospital, any site where violence was committed or a heroic action taken within the last hour
(interpretation by me: so, basically mostly anywhere in a modern city then?)
BGC2:
Any place where BGC was generated by a large number of people or over a length of time: a rock concert or riot, a sports game or revival meeting, a maximum security prison or enchanters workshop, a ward for terminal patiets or cyberware-clinic, a corporate research facility or large factory (interpretation by me: so still many if not most places in a metroplex then?)
BGC3:
Any place where significant BGC was created in the recent past(last 100 years[interpretation by me: so yes, even before magic so basically anywhere all over the world]):
Major Battlefields, slashed-and-burned forrests, burned-out residential areas, organ-legger chop-shops, most cathedrals, monasteries, lasmaseries, shrines and so on. (interpretation by me: so still many places in a metroplex)
BGC4:
Any place where significant BGC was created and the condition that created it still exists: battlefield that has seen heavy fighting and is still in use, a dragons lair, a heavily polluted area such as a slag heap or strip-mine, sites long and repeatedly associated with strong emotions, such as arlington national cemetery, stonehenge, scenes of sudden mass death such as transportation disasters or terrorist massacres like the chicago shattergraves.
BGC5:
Any site whose bgc was created by an event historical in scope: any place within 5 kilometers of a nuclear blast site(hiroshima, nagasaki, chicago, bikini etc; any genocidal death camps or gulags such as auschwitz(which, btw, SR4 WAR i think assigned a BGC of 8 . . and then made people go in to get a nazi administrators scalpell because they did not dare actually use the name mengele and to get to it you'd have to fight jew-zombies/spirits of the deceased prisoners) or the native american re-education and detention centers , any lethally toxic areas or radioactive waste storage sites.
So, yes, going by that i feel perfectly justified in thinking that most places in a megaplex should be BGC1 or 2 with spikes of 3 and 4.
this is ONLY the table.
i am NOT typing the whole BGC set, which is about 1.5 DINA4 Pages of Text.
SR4 BGC RULES:
Street Magic Pages 118-122 with a BGC "table" on Page 121
Prime Mover
Jul 8 2014, 03:06 AM
I try to use more as a foreshadowing then environmental factor. When the PC's start to feel the pain so to speak they know the location is somthing special.
psychophipps
Jul 8 2014, 03:39 AM
I don't play adepts/mages really so it's not something that I have run into, One GM/Player (we traded off between adventures) really liked to add the "flavor" (for lack of a better term) of the BGC into how it affected the magic in the group negatively. He got so graphic in a scene that the mage player said, "Fuck that shit. No more non-emergency assensing or magic guys, my character isn't letting that touch his aura any more than absolutely necessary." And strangely enough, the whole group just nodded grimly in agreement despite the serious hit in combat effectiveness we were risking.
@Stahlseele: For anything from SR2-4 references will do, thanks!
Shemhazai
Jul 8 2014, 06:30 AM
How do those examples amount to entire cities for all time?
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Jul 8 2014, 12:10 PM
QUOTE (Shemhazai @ Jul 7 2014, 11:30 PM)
How do those examples amount to entire cities for all time?
They don't, necessarily, but some see it that way.
ShadowDragon8685
Jul 8 2014, 02:19 PM
Applying a static background count to the entire plex is, IMO, kind of assy. It's like applying a blanket -1 dice to the hacker's hacking skill and program rating, or applying a blanket -1 skill and attribute to the Sammy's sammying.
In my games, I'd only hit someone with the background count of the Seattle Metroplex if they just got off the bus from rural Kansas or the middle of Tribesville, NAN or whatever, and just as a "holy smokes this place is different!" In general, though, I'd say that Magicians, Adepts, etcetera, should be able to adapt to "general environmental" background count like that, much in the way that someone from North America who goes off to Southeast Asia will after a few months adapt to the heat.
binarywraith
Jul 8 2014, 04:53 PM
QUOTE (Shemhazai @ Jul 8 2014, 01:30 AM)
How do those examples amount to entire cities for all time?
Pompeii.
The burning of Dresden.
The sack of Constantinople.
The black death in London.
The Rape of Nanking.
Hiroshima.
Nagasaki.
The French Revolution's bloody reign in Paris.
Wounded Knee.
The Battle of Praga.
All of Cambodia, after Pol Pot's bloody-handed butchers got done.
There isn't a field or flower in all of mainland Europe that hasn't been well watered with blood over the last couple thousand years, and the rest of the world isn't far behind. Humanity is -good- at atrocities.
Draco18s
Jul 8 2014, 04:57 PM
QUOTE (binarywraith @ Jul 8 2014, 12:53 PM)
Pompeii.
The burning of Dresden.
The sack of Constantinople.
Uh, I think he means this:
QUOTE
BGC2:
Any place where BGC was generated by a large number of people or over a length of time.
That description applies to basically any city ever built.
Shemhazai
Jul 8 2014, 05:07 PM
QUOTE (binarywraith @ Jul 8 2014, 11:53 AM)
Pompeii.
The burning of Dresden.
The sack of Constantinople.
The black death in London.
The Rape of Nanking.
Hiroshima.
Nagasaki.
The French Revolution's bloody reign in Paris.
Wounded Knee.
The Battle of Praga.
All of Cambodia, after Pol Pot's bloody-handed butchers got done.
There isn't a field or flower in all of mainland Europe that hasn't been well watered with blood over the last couple thousand years, and the rest of the world isn't far behind. Humanity is -good- at atrocities.
That's a great list of historical events worthy of background count. Of course, I was talking about the assertion that significant background count should cover typical metroplexes in Shadowrun and never fade.
Stahlseele
Jul 8 2014, 05:35 PM
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jul 8 2014, 06:57 PM)
Uh, I think he means this:
That description applies to basically any city ever built.
That and for instance the fires of rome and london and seattle(see hells kittchen, frigging volcanoe in the middle right?)
Also, if you were to dredge up crime statistics you'd probably have reason enough to have BGC in most parts of the citi because of crime.
And in the parts where THAT is NOT the case . . you have the alienating corp offices. Or research centers. Or factories.
And considering how toxic the river and the rain are, probably even BGC from pollution as well.
SpellBinder
Jul 8 2014, 05:52 PM
QUOTE (psychophipps @ Jul 7 2014, 09:39 PM)
I don't play adepts/mages really so it's not something that I have run into, One GM/Player (we traded off between adventures) really liked to add the "flavor" (for lack of a better term) of the BGC into how it affected the magic in the group negatively. He got so graphic in a scene that the mage player said, "Fuck that shit. No more non-emergency assensing or magic guys, my character isn't letting that touch his aura any more than absolutely necessary." And strangely enough, the whole group just nodded grimly in agreement despite the serious hit in combat effectiveness we were risking.
Gotta run into BGC the right way. Antagonistic spirits aspected towards the domain they're in (like the toxic areas in Lagos) can be delightfully scary to try and deal with.
In my group one player had dealt with a few spirits before an underground job brought them into a rating 3 blood domain. He cussed up a storm as the EX-Explosive rounds from his Predator IV (using the deadlier combat option, so +2 DV to all weapons) were mostly ineffective against a spirit's "shield" as it stood between him and its summoner (it wasn't any more powerful than what he had dealt with before, as reported by the party magician). It was also the first time that combat had lasted longer than one complete turn.
Shemhazai
Jul 8 2014, 06:29 PM
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Jul 8 2014, 01:35 PM)
That and for instance the fires of rome and london and seattle(see hells kittchen, frigging volcanoe in the middle right?)
Also, if you were to dredge up crime statistics you'd probably have reason enough to have BGC in most parts of the citi because of crime.
And in the parts where THAT is NOT the case . . you have the alienating corp offices. Or research centers. Or factories.
And considering how toxic the river and the rain are, probably even BGC from pollution as well.
All of those fires were over a century ago and their effects are not ongoing. That would seem to rule out BGC3 and BCG4. Acts of violence only generate BGC1 for an hour.
The alienating offices (BGC1), and research facilities, and large factories (both BCG2) can be anywhere the GM wants them to be, but are not the bulk of a city. (and hospitals, and awakened bars)
The environmental examples (slash and burn BGC3, strip mine BCG4, lethally toxic/radioactive waste BCG5) are quite severe.
But I just got the idea of an awakened bartender contact.
Bull
Jul 8 2014, 06:57 PM
Season 5 of Missions takes place in Chicago, and the CZ is an incredibly fragged up place now, as it should be. I have a blanket (and IMO very generous) BGC of 2 inside the zone itself (and none outside. The BGC respects boundaries, apparently). Due to lack of wireless infrastructure in Chicago in general and the CZ in general, there's also a Noise level of 2. (Both of these can and do change depending on circumstances, but will be laid out by the adventure itself).
So definitely something you have to deal with, and something to make players think twice about what they're playing. Noise can be dealt with, but BGC is a bit more difficult to deal with.
Warlordtheft
Jul 8 2014, 07:19 PM
Also, background counts fade over time iirc. A murder might result in a BC of 1 for a couple of days in an apartment, but gradually fade.
Lindt
Jul 9 2014, 03:10 AM
Im a shade rusty, but I would tend to assign BGCs when it felt that it was 'more' then just screwing the one player who read and understood the magic rules. It had to have a good reason in my narrative for it to be there.
At the same time, I also made an effort to have more power sites (Sr3, MitS p84 for those of you old farts keeping track) when events took my players off the city grid.
pbangarth
Jul 9 2014, 12:50 PM
I wonder how strong a correlation exists in our community between "thinking magic is too strong in this game" and "our group doesn't do background count much".
Stahlseele
Jul 9 2014, 01:20 PM
QUOTE (Lindt @ Jul 9 2014, 05:10 AM)
Im a shade rusty, but I would tend to assign BGCs when it felt that it was 'more' then just screwing the one player who read and understood the magic rules. It had to have a good reason in my narrative for it to be there.
At the same time, I also made an effort to have more power sites (Sr3, MitS p84 for those of you old farts keeping track) when events took my players off the city grid.
So, less of a hindrance for magic users and sometimes a bonus as well and BGC only used for "this is big evil juju"?
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Jul 9 2014, 02:50 PM)
I wonder how strong a correlation exists in our community between "thinking magic is too strong in this game" and "our group doesn't do background count much".
That's part of the reason for me making this thread.
In my experience, balancing mechanisms that should stop magic from being a go to easy mode i win button solution are not used often, if at all.
While there are sanners for cyberware and weapons and cameras and the such more or less everywhere which makes that even more of an issue.
Draco18s
Jul 9 2014, 03:32 PM
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Jul 9 2014, 09:20 AM)
That's part of the reason for me making this thread.
In my experience, balancing mechanisms that should stop magic from being a go to easy mode i win button solution are not used often, if at all.
While there are sanners for cyberware and weapons and cameras and the such more or less everywhere which makes that even more of an issue.
Seems that BGC usage is evenly split across the spectrum, with a slight dip on "every session."
Maybe everything from "every other game" onwards is potentially a "Chargen factors in BGC" answer.
Unchecked magic is very powerful, and BGC helps balancing that. What I still donīt like after all those years is the double-dipping (less magic + reduced force), so Filtering is really good to have.
pbangarth
Jul 9 2014, 10:24 PM
QUOTE (Ryu @ Jul 9 2014, 02:35 PM)
Maybe everything from "every other game" onwards is potentially a "Chargen factors in BGC" answer.
Unchecked magic is very powerful, and BGC helps balancing that. What I still donīt like after all those years is the double-dipping (less magic + reduced force), so Filtering is really good to have.
Yes. My Free Spirit PC in Los Angeles made a lot of use of Filtering and Cleansing.
FuelDrop
Jul 9 2014, 11:24 PM
We're starting a pbp game on mars soon. Mana vacuum isn't background count, but it's pretty close.
Draco18s
Jul 10 2014, 04:14 AM
QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Jul 9 2014, 07:24 PM)
We're starting a pbp game on mars soon. Mana vacuum isn't background count, but it's pretty close.
Actually it is. Explicitly.
Medicineman
Jul 10 2014, 06:45 AM
QUOTE (binarywraith @ Jul 8 2014, 12:53 PM)
Pompeii.
The burning of Dresden.
The sack of Constantinople.
The black death in London.
The Rape of Nanking.
Hiroshima.
Nagasaki.
The French Revolution's bloody reign in Paris.
Wounded Knee.
The Battle of Praga.
All of Cambodia, after Pol Pot's bloody-handed butchers got done.
There isn't a field or flower in all of mainland Europe that hasn't been well watered with blood over the last couple thousand years, and the rest of the world isn't far behind. Humanity is -good- at atrocities.
I wonder what Backgroundcount is in Asamundo
with a Beckgrounddance
Medicineman
Stahlseele
Jul 10 2014, 05:54 PM
Aside from where they make their food and keep the mindless ones, probably pretty low actually i'd guess.
Glyph
Jul 11 2014, 02:10 AM
QUOTE (Ryu @ Jul 9 2014, 11:35 AM)
Maybe everything from "every other game" onwards is potentially a "Chargen factors in BGC" answer.
Unchecked magic is very powerful, and BGC helps balancing that. What I still donīt like after all those years is the double-dipping (less magic + reduced force), so Filtering is really good to have.
Yeah, SR4 really botched background count. It
should have been more on par with modifiers such as lighting or cover, a simple dice pool penalty.
CaptRory
Jul 11 2014, 03:21 AM
Where is Background Count listed in 4e? I tried looking for it and got nowhere fast.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Jul 11 2014, 03:29 AM
QUOTE (CaptRory @ Jul 10 2014, 08:21 PM)
Where is Background Count listed in 4e? I tried looking for it and got nowhere fast.
Street Magic.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Jul 11 2014, 03:30 AM
QUOTE (Glyph @ Jul 10 2014, 07:10 PM)
Yeah, SR4 really botched background count. It should have been more on par with modifiers such as lighting or cover, a simple dice pool penalty.
See, I think it works just fine, and as advertised.
psychophipps
Jul 11 2014, 03:52 AM
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Jul 10 2014, 09:30 PM)
See, I think it works just fine, and as advertised.
Agreed. A dice pool penalty really isn't shit what with Edge and all, especially with the 15+ DP monsters we see regular-like on the forum here.
Uli
Jul 11 2014, 12:37 PM
Exactly. In my Chicago campaign, the rat shaman from the Ceezee had to plan how his magic will work, including his sustaining focus from improved reflexes and his devil rat inhabiting allied spirit. While the 4A background count was so intense that I rarely used more than rating 2, the new rules inspire to regularly have ratings 1-3.
Glyph
Jul 12 2014, 02:44 AM
Different campaigns, I guess. I wouldn't enjoy playing a mage who had to carefully "plan" how to use his core, basic abilities, or having to pay for a Magic rating I wouldn't actually get to use fully. The rules for background count in SR4 are fine if even rating: 1 background count is relatively rare, but if it is used so commonly that entire cities are assigned a background count, then the penalties are too harsh. I think magic needs balancing factors (overcasting and spirits being two of the biggies), but SR4 background count is like SR5's imbecilic wireless rules - clunky, poorly thought-out rules that suck the fun out of playing a particular type of character.
Shinobi Killfist
Jul 12 2014, 04:28 AM
I'm with Glyph on this. A dice pool penalty is quick and easy to use. adjusting the force of your focuses, sustained spells etc just is a hassle. SR5 may be going back to the reduced force thing though it is written kind of unclearly in street magic. With the Back ground count range being 1-24 I think in SR5 a dice pool penalty seems plenty limiting. 1-3 covers what used to just be 1. Personally I only use it when I feel like adding a spot light to the mage by giving them an extra challenge to overcome. Ideally they should balance mages so back ground count is not a balancing factor at all and just a extra set piece to add challenges. Outside of overcasting and spirits it is relatively balanced in 4e, in 5e spirits are even more powerful though the higher drains helps curb overcasting a bit.
SpellBinder
Jul 12 2014, 05:41 AM
I did like the idea of awakened being acclimated to a particular domain, neither hindered nor benefiting from a positive BGC. Makes things a little more interesting, though potentially better for the cyberzombies or changelings that create their own astral haze wherever they go. It'd be an incredible benefit for changelings to become acclimated to their own haze and not suffer from the +4 BGC (or whatever it will be in SR5).
tisoz
Dec 4 2014, 10:57 AM
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Jul 7 2014, 05:44 PM)
@Ryu:
SR3 Magic in the Shadows Page 83 it starts on BGC and on PAge 84 is a little Table:
BGC1:
Any Place where Background Count was briefly or recently generated; (interpretation by me: means BGC does not go away, if it has ever been created?)
The Site of a heated argument or passionate affair, a magicians convention or a bar frequented by the Awakened, an alienating corporate office environment, a hospital, any site where violence was committed or a heroic action taken within the last hour.
(interpretation by me: so, basically mostly anywhere in a modern city then?)
BGC2:
Any place where BGC was generated by a large number of people or over a length of time: a rock concert or riot, a sports game or revival meeting, a maximum security prison or enchanters workshop, a ward for terminal patients or cyberware-clinic, a corporate research facility or large factory (interpretation by me: so still many if not most places in a metroplex then?)
BGC3:
Any place where significant BGC was created in the recent past(last 100 years[interpretation by me: so yes, even before magic so basically anywhere all over the world]):
Major Battlefields, slashed-and-burned forrests, burned-out residential areas, organ-legger chop-shops, most cathedrals, monasteries, lasmaseries, shrines and so on. (interpretation by me: so still many places in a metroplex)
BGC4:
Any place where significant BGC was created and the condition that created it still exists: battlefield that has seen heavy fighting and is still in use, a dragons lair, a heavily polluted area such as a slag heap or strip-mine, sites long and repeatedly associated with strong emotions, such as arlington national cemetery, stonehenge, scenes of sudden mass death such as transportation disasters or terrorist massacres like the chicago shattergraves.
BGC5:
Any site whose bgc was created by an event historical in scope: any place within 5 kilometers of a nuclear blast site(hiroshima, nagasaki, chicago, bikini etc; any genocidal death camps or gulags such as auschwitz(which, btw, SR4 WAR i think assigned a BGC of 8 . . and then made people go in to get a nazi administrators scalpell because they did not dare actually use the name mengele and to get to it you'd have to fight jew-zombies/spirits of the deceased prisoners) or the native american re-education and detention centers , any lethally toxic areas or radioactive waste storage sites.
So, yes, going by that i feel perfectly justified in thinking that most places in a megaplex should be BGC1 or 2 with spikes of 3 and 4.
this is ONLY the table.
i am NOT typing the whole BGC set, which is about 1.5 DINA4 Pages of Text.
SR4 BGC RULES:
Street Magic Pages 118-122 with a BGC "table" on Page 121
MitS p. 84
QUOTE
Most background counts last only a few hours or days at the most. The more potent the event, however, the more durable the traces. Once the source of the background count is gone, the impression will fade over time, disappearing in the space of a few hours or several days or weeks, at the gamemaster's discretion and depending on the intensity of the original impression.
So BGC does go away for many areas. The description of BGC 1 states "within the last hour" so I usually figure it fades away in about an hour. For some of the higher BGCs, I try to think if I were a participant in the BGC causing event, how long would the feeling stay with me after the event? Like going to a college basketball game where your school upset the #1 ranked school, you and the people on campus are usually feeling pretty good about it for a day to several days.
For longer duration events, it is more subjective. I keep thinking of examples that would fade relatively quickly, except the event gets repeated. Such as religious ceremonies or working in a cubicle farm. The BGC would normally fade by the next ceremony or work shift, but the repeated event starts influencing the recovery time.
Places that still have strong BGCs after 100 years are likely not going to fade any time soon, but if they do it is going to be by a point, not entirely.
As far as applying BGC modifiers, I do it if there is already a BGC, or on the next action after a BGC event has taken place, like using magic, or violence accompanied by strong emotion. (So it is better to calmly shoot someone in the face and hope they die before they know it and can react with strong emotion.
) I also only apply the highest BGC. For example if the PCs are in a cathedral (BGC 2) and cast a spell (BGC 1) it is still a BGC 2, not 2+1.
pbangarth
Dec 4 2014, 02:14 PM
QUOTE (tisoz @ Dec 4 2014, 05:57 AM)
As far as applying BGC modifiers, I do it if there is already a BGC, or on the next action after a BGC event has taken place, like using magic, or violence accompanied by strong emotion. (So it is better to calmly shoot someone in the face and hope they die before they know it and can react with strong emotion.
) I also only apply the highest BGC. For example if the PCs are in a cathedral (BGC 2) and cast a spell (BGC 1) it is still a BGC 2, not 2+1.
Interesting idea. You have great power at your mental command, but after you wield it, not only does it Drain you but it sickens you as well. There's some fun in that for the GM.
Stahlseele
Dec 4 2014, 02:19 PM
Right, that is actually something i never thought to consider O.o
Basically, every time you cast a combat spell or any high force spell, you create your own little pocket of BGC . .
Same for the sammy opening up his fully automatic grenade launcher on a bunch of enemy goons or something. .
As for the mage . . i don't like mages and magic, let's get that out of the way right up front now but . .
If he creates the BGC, would it not, kinda by definition, be aspected towards him specifically and towards his type of magic generally?
And for the record: going by the created by the big masses of people i still maintain that every city should be covered in BGC from that alone technically.
Because even if the BGC from that would go away over time as stated by tisoz above, the masses of people would not go away and thus the BGC would not go away either, as long as the people are there . . and depopulating an entire city would probably create some sort of BGC itself i guess . .
And of course BGC only fucks over magic type characters, because it was implemented specifically as a balancing factor for magic use by everybody . .
Kinda like they did later on with the Noise Level for Matrix-Based characters because suddenly the all wireless stuff seemed to make them a tad bit powerfull i guess and to a lesser extent the essence rules and the general prevalence of all kinds of cameras and security scanners everywhere for the machine based samurai.
sk8bcn
Dec 4 2014, 04:48 PM
Maybe they should lighten the table for SR5 and affect the limits of magic users.
Stahlseele
Dec 4 2014, 05:01 PM
Hmm, not sure if that would actually do anything . .
Usually, actually hitting your limit is kinda hardish if i got that right.
No idea though, because i know fuck all about the SR5 rules and mechanics, specifically the new ones.
pbangarth
Dec 4 2014, 05:49 PM
One of the mainstays of my long-standing argument that Shadowrun is not overpowered by magic is that there are lots of built-in limitations, BGC being one of them. I've played a Free Spirit in LA, and the mess of background there was constantly screwing her over. She zipped out to the desert every once in a while to get some 'fresh air'.
And now I'm playing an adept on Mars! O_o
Stahlseele
Dec 4 2014, 06:45 PM
Yees . . if the BGC were used as written in the book by more people, less people would complain about magic i guess . .
But as i said before, i for exmaple have very rarely seen BGC used anywhere else but on plot important occassions.
Which is the main point of this thread here.
Glyph
Dec 5 2014, 05:11 AM
The trouble with BGC is that it is a flat penalty, meaning it affects min-maxed builds less, which encourages those builds while making less-powerful builds nonviable. Someone with 10 dice losing 5 of those dice will be hurting a lot more than someone with 20 dice losing 5 of those dice.
I played street-level hermetic sorcerers with a wide range of skills in SR3, even though you could take A: Resources and the right Totem to pile on the bonus dice. Why? Because the baseline sorcerer was a playable option.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Dec 5 2014, 03:50 PM
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Dec 4 2014, 10:01 AM)
Hmm, not sure if that would actually do anything . .
Usually, actually hitting your limit is kinda hardish if i got that right.
No idea though, because i know fuck all about the SR5 rules and mechanics, specifically the new ones.
Not all that hard to hit reasonable Limits. I do it multiple times in every game session. With Limits of 5, 6 and 7 even.
Tracked it over 3 game sessions. I broke Limits about 57% of the time over those three game sessions (No Edge Expenditures).
I hate Limits.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Dec 5 2014, 03:52 PM
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Dec 4 2014, 11:45 AM)
Yees . . if the BGC were used as written in the book by more people, less people would complain about magic i guess . .
But as i said before, i for exmaple have very rarely seen BGC used anywhere else but on plot important occassions.
Which is the main point of this thread here.
I agree with this. Our GM's use it freely, and Mages are generally kept in check because of it... Well, that and a few other things.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Dec 5 2014, 03:56 PM
QUOTE (Glyph @ Dec 4 2014, 10:11 PM)
The trouble with BGC is that it is a flat penalty, meaning it affects min-maxed builds less, which encourages those builds while making less-powerful builds nonviable. Someone with 10 dice losing 5 of those dice will be hurting a lot more than someone with 20 dice losing 5 of those dice.
True, but that is a Game expectation that needs to be set and understood by all involved. If I know that I am going to run into BGC of 1-2 on regular occasions, then I can plan for it (by making sure I am not just slinging mojo all the time because I need a fallback option on occasion).
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