OK. I was considering making this a poll, but there are just too many options.

Essentially: What Chargen Systems do you allow?
Do you set it to one of the main 4 featured in NSRCG?
Do you let players choose from any of the 4 in NSRCG?
Do you let them choose from a selection? IE: BPs or Sum To 10?
Do you have your own custom system?
Do you customise the common systems?
Do you only allow your own customised system?

You get the picture. So what options do you give to your players?

I allow any of the four primary systems, though I'm considering dropping BeCKS.

~J

I give my players a choice...

BECKS (slightly modified)
Sum To Ten
Build Points

Note: The Modifications to BECKS involve house rules that say that karma costs for rasing attributes should be ( New Attribute value - racial modifier ) * 2. So a troll raising his intelligence from 2 to 3 pays ( 3 - (-2)) *2 = 10. It also requires those with negative attribute bonuses to pay to reach an attribute value of 1 during start up. A Troll with has to pay 24 karma during char gen just to get a charisma(10), intelligence(10) and quickness(4) of 1. I've also modified the cost of orks, elves, and dwarves to prevent them from getting too great of an advantage from my system of attribute raising. (Raised the cost of each to 30 karma)

Anyway, I found that players would make their characters using the BECKS system. ( By far the most complicated system ) Then they would quickly compute their characters using both the Sum to 10 and Build Point Systems. If they scrape a few points out of those systems then they would use them instead.

We use scrap paper when figuring out character stats, and do not use NSRCG. The finalized stats are then written into blank character sheets. ( and by that time I know enough about the characters to print off exactly what type of sheets they need )

Priorities or 123 BPs

Generally priority or 125 BPs. The others aren't "official" systems.

Build points 125 or priority. Usually we make use of Build points. Don't really use anything else.

Don

Sum-to-Ten or Build Points (125). Not one or the other, but a choice between the two systems that everyone uses.

Everybody uses BeCKS, even NPCs when I take the time to properly balance them against the PCs instead of just saying "Yeah, that looks about right."

Priority system, with options for merits and flaws out of the Companion.

Every now and then, sum-to-ten and points turn up.

Where did Sum to Ten come from? I haven't been able to locate it...

I think most people heard about it through NSRCG, although I once heard that the system originally featured in one of the 2nd ed books (The 2nd ed Shadowrun Companion?).

SRComp, 2nd edition.

~J

Sum to Ten, Priority, or BP (120 with +'s for good BGs / stuff / pizza).

Sum to ten for the sammys, priority for the mages, and BP for people who both love to write and buy me pizza.

i use the bp system with 114 points and up to 6 pts in flaws (yes, i know i am a stingy bastard ). i don't charge any extra for meta variants, and i revamped werewolves and vamps (which i will post if anyone wants me to) into playable races. some bitching at first about the 114 points, but in the end everyone seems to be happy.

I tend to pick one system, based on the sort of characters I'm trying to encourage. So I use BeCKS for gutter-games, BPs for specialists, Priorities for newbie-games. I like the idea behind sum-to-10. Never used it though.

My gamemaster is using building points (120) and apparingly no limits for edges and flaws

I'm pretty sure it was SR1, but it's been a while. It didn't seem like something that they'd whip out of their asses just for the Comp. That was what BP was for.

For those that don't know Sum-to-Ten, it's easy to explain.
It's like the Priority System, but numbers are assigned to each letter: A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, E=0. Now you pick any combination of priorities that adds to 10. BBBDE for example. Or AACEE. You can have a full magician with 1,000,000 resources. For a mundane human you can take Race and Magic both at E, and have slightly better skills, resources, or attributes than you could with the standard Priority system.

Does Sum to 10 let you play a PhysAd/Aspected mage? Unfortunatly Magicians Way is all-or-nothing, when my character concept just has access to one element.

Of cause Priority B or 3 points

Nope. There is no way to play an aspected PhysMage by canon without just voluntarily giving up the powers associated.

~J

Sure there is. You can always take the Shamanistic geas on Magical Power, and I'm sure a GM would allow another aspect to be taken as a geas with it as well. Reduces the cost to 0.75 Power Points a level. 'Course, that's the same level of "voluntarily giving up some power" that aspected magicians go through, too; lesser cost for limited power.

True, I did not think of that.

~J

So far I´ve only used the Priority System. But that Sum To 10 thing seems rather interesting. Is it balanced you guys? I mean, does it allow for more Min-Maxing or does it solve the problem of certain character-types turning out obviously worse of than others? Maybe both?

The biggest thing about sum to 10 is it makes Human Street Samurai brutal... you take magic and race E, with cash A, and Attributes and Skills B. That gives you enough cash to deck your sam to the limits, without the usual hit to skills or attributes.

JaronK

Two things bear out in my experience.

Mundane Humans get 3 more attributes or 6 more skills if a Sam, or some more money to buy toys when playing Macgyver or the skill freak. This eliminates the "accidental meta" IMO.

Under Priority, a mundane character's race is set at D, and there is the temptation of making the character an ork or dwarf for the stat boosts and natural visions. Enless the character concept is already strongly defined as a human, there seems to be a proliferation of metas seeing as how they've already "paid" the priority for the race.

The other is a natural tendency for mages to invest more in Spell Points. Full mages start with 25 Spell points and since they're limited to a Resources of B under priority, at most the character will have a number of spell points in the high 30's. Aspected Mages either will have way too much money (having assigned a resources of A), or way too little (C or below) to afford extra spell points.

To some, that might be a bit more magical versitility then they want in their games, but to me, mages are karmic black holes to begin with and so giving the player a bit more versatility in their specialty isn't the end of the world.

But the "accidental metas" irks me something fierce.

That's more a reflection on the standard priority system than sum-to-ten.

Build points allow exactly the same thing. Assuming a mundane human with 120 points I can throw 60 points at attributes (30), 30 at resources (a million) and still have 30 skill points (same as priority D). Allowing more BP will only add to skills.

Fact is mundane humans are penalised under the default system.

Fact is Awakened metahumans are penalised under the BP system.

My point was merely that only under one chargen method does this anomaly occur - standard priority. Sum to ten and BP both give more advantages to mundane humans than that.

If using BP the obvious thing to do is decrease the cost of magic by 5 or 6 points (at least for full/aspected magicians - I've got my doubts as to whether it's suitable for adepts), but I do wonder why those values were put in originally...

It's odd that when calculating the BP costs of the BBB archetypes that the addition of magic seems to add so much cost. 120 BP buys better than the BBB Street Sam (or detective or ...), but a much worse mage...