Exactly. One of the first things that I agree with you on.

Who said 34 karma is the practical limit of character advancement? We had a discussion about the amount of total GK that players possessed on average, not so long ago and I don't think I saw anyone with under 50. Now, having 20 people with over 300 is a bit over the top, regardless if that's normal or slightly above average for your other veteran players (PnP players, that is... 4-5 players in group).

Just out of curiousity, when you have these monster groups of shadowrunners running around, do they all do their runs en masse? I'm having a hard time visualizing 20 shadowrunners trying to stealth into a building.

Hey, good for you. That's what we all do. It, along with your other "Look at the List of Things I Hate About Shadowrun" list, just seemed strange coming from such a "veteran" GM.

So, why aren't you running a SR1 (or 2nd edition, even) game?

That guy. I must've missed the discussions on average karma level, myself.

Meaningless statistics time!

We have roughly 170 PCs approved and active on SR: Denver. 48 samurai, 21 Adepts, 30 Mages/Shamans, and 71 of other assorted archtypes, including the token Ganger.

We average around 25 players online, with evening peaks well into the upper 30's, mid 40's. The 'low time' is between 5 and 8 AM CST, with about 11 people online then.

The average karma of a player is 82.89 karma. Median is 27.271. We have 27 players with over 300 karma. The highest karma player on the game has 645 points of karma, and has been playing more or less continuously since the game opened about four years ago, roughly earning 0.44 karma per day.

Mentioned partly out of love of statistical analysis, and partly because it leads into the next question:

There are very few events that involve the entire online playerbase at once, and most of those are social events. Our actual Shadowruns are usually composed of 3-5 players, one acting as a GM, either with or without his own character participating.

Unlike many other MUSHs, we let our Players act as GMs for plots, and not just the Admins of the game. What this means, effectively, is that the MUSH is comprised of many different tabletop games that all sort of exist in the same world. The admins are more there to help coordinate between them and keep a rough sense of order and cohesive theme about the place.

One of the biggest problems with trying to run a Shadowrun with someone who has over 300 karma is challenging them - without outright killing them. Most anybody can be taken down by an adept sniper with a rifle loaded with APDS - but that's not very fun. My solution is, I tend to make the plots less about 'can you get past the door/security/guard/black ops squad' and more about questions into morality, making choices between two evils, solving mysteries, and so forth. And, lastly...

Because I'm not running the game for myself - I'm running it for 170 other people. There's a lot of factors - 2nd edition books get harder and harder to find, people want the new toys to play with, but overall, the main reason is just to keep everyone on the same page.

Whether I like it or not, the game is in 3rd edition. If people go out and buy a copy of the book from the local gaming store because of our game, they're going to be buying the 3rd edition printing. Same with the supplements - there's a certain assumption that they'll be able to use those on our games. With the last few books, though, YotC, SSG, and now SOTA: 2064, it's seemed more like doing triage and damage control than including source material. We have serious concerns about game balance and playability if we included these books word for word.

There's one things that bothers me with that "possibility" (by your choice of words I see that you don't know it exactly either):
The M&M Errata also includes the previously missing suggestion not to allow cultured bioware for beginners (I'm still wondering why they didn't have the guts to outright forbid it like with beta grade cyberware). So the "beginning character" argument is somewhat weak to me.

While I consider it even more unbalancing despite those prerequisites. The ME2 and ME3 pre Errata where accessible for any character. Now it's only one character type that can get this off-game bonus. Note: I'm still only arguing the off-game part "karmic reduction".
Be honest: Cognition itself would still be a great metamagic and fulfill the concept "awakened characters are special", even if it had a restriction that said. "The maximum karmic reduction in conjunction with a Mnemonic Enhancer is still 1 Karma per skill level"!?

This argument kind of fails to see my argument again: I didn't critizise the ME-analog effect. I critizised the compatibility of both effects

The direct comparison lies with the pure off-game effect. The M&M errata suggested the limitation of access to cultured bioware in general. It would even have been possible to make an Errata on ME that restricted it to ingame aquisition. Yet it was decided to completely remove the karmic reduction greater than 1 per skill level.
And now it's brought back, for one single type of character. And that (and only that) is, where my beefs with Cognition lie.

I previously mentioned I have similar beefs with other SotA'64 Powers. It's generally not the Power itself or better its idea. It's just certain points that I don't like.

Take Iron Guts: More powerful per Level as its implant counterparts -2 on Power, while implants that do similar things only provide -1, level restriction only Adepts magic rating while the implants can only go natural Bod/2 where you'd need a natural Bod aatribute of 12 to achieve the same level *Thus mainly "Trolls only". This power would still be powerful enough if it came only with a -1 per level.

Pretty much the same with Iron Lung. The TN reduction is limited only by magic rating. A fixed TN reduction however, would have served the purpose more than enough.

And I'm still the person who find's the idea of the "Lost Adept" rule rather stupid

Holy out-of-context, Batman.

mfb didn't say "practical limit." He was talking about how three grades of initiation are the average upper limit, character advancement-wise, in most games... at least, most games that he's been in. (Myself as well, but that's beside the point. I'm sure there's others whose games average at higher upper limits.) He happened to include the karma cost for those initiations as a demonstration of what it would take to get a certain power. It didn't include karma costs for skills or attribute boosts one might tack on along the way, which I'm sure is part of these 300-karma totals you're talking about in your games.

This one's not Craig's fault. I read mfb's quoted text the day it was posted, and only just now rereading it in Craig's quote did I realize that he meant initiation and not karma. Holy vagueness, Batman.

~J

Mmrr... Obviously I wasn't trying hard enough to twist the rules then, because I - and both my gaming groups - were sufficiently underwhelmed by the SR2 physads that we reduced the cost of many powers to make them more attractive; until we did, only seriously hardcore roleplayer types would even consider making one, and that's not to say everyone else was a munchkin by any stretch of the imagination. Just the old Increased Reflexes power alone - same cost as the SR3 one but without any reaction increase, initiative dice only - was clearly broken in comparison to the equivalent cybernetic options.

I'm curious - would you be prepared to post what you consider a non-wuss SR2 physad? In fairness, I will warn you in advance that it's likely to engender a lot of debate and picking apart of the character.

I've read the discussions on the German Forums. It strikes me most people have missed the point. Ways were always meant to be integral to adept character concepts since as far back as the Grimoires and Awakenings and all adepts were meant to have a Way.

As described from that point forward, particularly after Awakenings), Ways provided a guideline not only on character outlook, but the manner in which he expressed and developed powers (as opposed to the random collection of useful powers method of character creation). However, since there was never any game mechanic attached to this, the vast majority of players/GMs disregarded Ways as simply fluff, even though their importance was once again underlined in MiTS. As such it was decided to address this "problem" in several ways in SOTA64:

The first was to use the "testemonies" to show how Ways actually apply to everyday characters in the shadows and the Sixth World, grounding the stuff you'd read about in the rules (ie.Grimoire2, Awakenings, MitS) before but never seen in a game world context (outside the novels).

Another approach was to use the fiction in SOTA64-which IMHO has got less attention than it deserves, both in the Adept chapter and elsewhere— to underline how powers develop within the frameworks of Ways and how flexible these can actually be This was meant to show that Ways are not necessarily the straight-jackets they might appear to be at first sight (ie. Howler's Killing Hands manifest as Wolf's claws, while an artist like Handiwork developed it to sculpt wood).

Finally, the "Lost Adept" optional rule was introduced for the benefit of gamemasters who want to underline the role (and limits) of Ways in Adepthood and also to combat the missmatched "whatever looks useful" method of power selection.

The main problem I've seen with the rule seems to arise from the fact that some people have misunderstood that while each Way is ultimately individual, it reflects a core personal ideal which almost never changes and isn't particularly flexible. It should not adjust for convenience or even need. Like a magician's tradition, Ways are (mostly) for life. What a player describes as his character's Way at his character creation is as "permanent" as a magician's choice of tradition. Since "Magic in the Sixth World works best—and is less dangerous and random—when given a particular focus" and since powers develop naturally or through training in the pursuit of the character's Way/ideal, it should be harder for someone to acquire/develop powers if he doesn't have a Way/ideal to pursue, or if they do not fit into the Way he chose to pursue. The optional "Lost Adept" rule is simply meant to reflect this reality.

The totem list is too short? I actually think it's way too long, and mostly poorly thought-out and weakly supported. Full of totems that are incorrectly portrayed, not appropriately associated to a real mythology, or just plain unnecessary (yeah, the Prairie Dog was always an important mythological archetype...wtf).

It should cut the garbage totems out and increase the breadth and depth of totem descriptions, with bonuses and penalties that more solidly back a style of play, rather than severely codified "quirks." And, for chrissakes, they shouldn't be neglected in terms of regional specificity. Right now, thanks to SOTA64, Hermetic schools have more regional specificity and appropriate depth than shamanic totems do. Which is kinda sad (not that the material in SOTA64 isn't good, it's awesome).

As for the problems with codifying the Ways, what Wireknight suggested as the first possibility doesn't exclude any member of any particular Way from getting any power at all. It just might cost a bit extra. So the Spirit Way adept could still get Killing Blows, if it were central to the character concept.

The thing is, focusing chi into deadly blows is a matter of spirituality, certainly, but the whole "deadly blows" thing makes me think that this would be more of a spiritual (Eastern martial arts ascetic, specifically) manifestation of the warrior way. Not every warrior way adept is a former UCAS Seal who's got Improved Ability(Submachine Guns).

I was actually more thinking along the lines of an artist adept who used Smashing Blow and Improved Unarmed to chisel sculptures when I considered this, and it's the sort of reason why you'd be able to improve your list with edges. You'd pay more points, but you're also so far from the baseline that it should take a bit more push to follow your way. The additional effort, of course, is what makes it worthwhile.

But, in this case, I'd think an "artist adept" whose art is deeply rooted in causing people grievous physical harm while still alive is archetypically a follower of the twisted way.

If you're the kind of GM who thinks "Way of the Warrior" is descriptor enough, then what you're saying makes sense. However, a player telling me he's designing a Way of the Warrior adept with a berserker in mind or even with a background as a pitfighter, is never going to get me to approve IA: B/R Anything . On the other hand a Way of the Warrior Sioux WildCat in my game could believably have acquired that power. It all boils down to trusting your players to make a three-dimensional character with a minimal background, and calling them on it when they're don't. Since the writers can't set your standards for you, we prefered to leave the judgement call to each individual group.

Personally, I've found that requiring a 10 word summary of the character conception of his Way is often more than enough even for the most reluctant munchy. Mileage will, of course, vary.

That would be my evaluation also. The Artist's Way is defined by following one's creative impulse, rather than the destructive one. If you start getting them muddled then you're probably on the Twisted Way (which is one of the few exceptions to the Ways being permanent thing I said above)

Maybe a better way (no pun intended) would be to have adept players provide a short paragraph describing their character's Way. Then, using this, take a look at the adept's chosen powers, which have a "base" cost as per the book, but impose a 25-50% increase on powers that are clearly not part of a particular adept's Way.

For example, say a particular adept in of the Invisible Way, and his writeup includes references to being like a jungle cat, agile, silent, and deadly. In that case, Killing Hands, Increased Reflexes, or Improved Athletics/Stealth would be totally appropriate, and cost no more than the base price. Improved Social skills may have a +25% cost modifier because it's not really part of being like a cat, but it's not really opposed to it either. Smashing Blow, however, would be right out, imposing a +50% cost modifier.

...or is this how Ways work in the (new) book? I haven't actually read it myself.

That's almost exactly how the optional rule for Ways works in the new book...

There *is* a reward: you get to be a frickin' ADEPT!

The thing people seem to be ignoring about magical types in general is that they're not just checkbox options you pick when creating a character. They involve taking priorities(or paying points) that decrease the available resources for skills, attributes, and equipment. If it's so imbalanced that even given the generation system it's still a "freebie" to be an adept or a magician, maybe the whole character creation system needs to be reconsidered.

Partially ... o.k. ...

My next question would be: Where the points that I addressed mentioned?
Do you see my point now (that I specified once more)?
Could you (and just you from your POV) please give an answer to the question I posed in my last posting concerning Cognition?

Why go to the German Forums?
I voiced my opinion here!?
Others did that too ...

I can't speak for others, but I do see two major problems (and at least one misunderstanding on your behalf, when it comes to my being against that idea of the "Lost Adept") for your understanding there:

1. IIRC you're not a native speaker of the german language, as I'm neither a native spekaer of the english language nor Spanish for that matter. It's possible that you didn't actually understand where german users had their beefs (especially since many german forums currently suffer from users that eiterh can't or aren't willing to voice their opinion in proper [understandable] language). A possibility that I leave up to your own judgement.

2. I do understand that the idea of the "Ways" goes back to the Grimoire and Awakenings (and of course Earthdawn concepts). The significant difference to me (as voiced in one of the earliest threads concerning SotA'64) is the fact, that in SR the concept of how any awakened character deals with his / her magic is based on his / her own self awareness, his / her own beliefs, etc. The ED take was the other way round. Magic just "was". The Ways there were laid out for the specific user. If he /she went astray from what "destiny" (lack of better wording) deemed as his path when dealing with magic, he / she would get into "trouble" by losing his / her abilities.
As I said, in SR it's the other way round. The user's mindset is, what defines his magic. Thus any change in that mindset would directly go into how he or she defined his or her magic.

The consequence here then is, that any change within the Adepts mindset, would open him up to certain powers that previously weren't in line with his unaltered mindset.
Theoretically it should even be possible for a hermetic to alter his mindset and thus turn into something that is closer to a shaman, when looking at the fact that it's the magic wielder's mind that determines the way his magic takes.
By core rules, that's impossible. But when looking at SotA'64, we already face a change in that paradigm.
I'm not quite sure whether it's SotA'64 or the so far german only "Brennpunkt:ADL", that even suggest that initiated hermetics can learn to conjure spirits that normally fall into the realms of shamans.

This brings me to the next point: Many users don't have access to either Grimoire or Awakenings (as weak as I consider your reference myself, due to what I tried to point out in the previous part of this posting), so they don't know these "testamonies". And to make things "worse": Some don't even bother, since those books belong to an outdated edition. I for one am among the "worst" in this scenario, since I do have access to both books, but still see them as irrelevant within the SR3 edition, simply because SR3 revised so many parts of the magic system.

This is the point where my beefs with that rule lie: The SotA'64 permanently emphasises the fact that "Ways" are flexible, yet that optional rule (that you even wanted as fixed rule) tries to make them fixed by imposing penalties whenever something doesn't look like it fits to the chosen Way.
My personal favourite example here is:
Let's have a Speaker Adept that initially resolved around solving his problems with words. That's more or less the "politician" amongst the Adepts. Now let's have this Adept come to realize that talking doesn't necessarily get him everywhere. His mindset is slightly altered. He now follows the von Clausewitz' doctrine that war is simply the continuation of politics by other means. He now decides to learn the Killing Hands Power (or any other combat related power that normally fits the "Warrior's Way").
By your and the ED take of the Ways, he'd be "lost" (since he'd no longer abide his original ways) and at least suffered an increased power point cost for those Killing Hands. Worse, a GM could even decide to have him lose his powers temporarily or permanently.

If they aren't straight-jackets, where would any power point cost increase or power lost (temporal or permanent) come from?
I could accept the temporal loss of certain powers until an Adept has learnt to cope with his new mindset, but what really bothers me with that rule, is the power point cost increase: That increase is permanent. Just as with karma, there's no refund on power points.

Isn't that kind of contraditory? You just said that "Ways" aren't that rigid. How can a GM then actually limit the choice of individual powers?
Why do you later on say that they should be rigid, as the human mind doesn't significantly change?
Even "whatever looks useful" could be a Way in and onto itself. Call it the Way of the Pragmatist ...

That's a question of philosophy. This again assumes that people are more or less destined to be a certain persona. Others that believe in free will, will highly disagree with you on that point.

There are more than enough real world occurences where people dramatically altered their behaviour due to need. Most murders occur under such circumstances.
The same philosphical war between Creationism, Evolution, Destiny and Free Will.

When looking at the emphasis that Ways are depending on mindsets, that's not too logical. Even the player's permanent off-play choice for a magical tradition doesn't wholly fit with how SR magic is described.
The difference here is that SotA'64 constantly emphasises that Way are less reigid, but you make it sound to the contrary.

And I still find the idea absurd to a certain extend (particularly the part about increased power point cost) within the given context.
And your emphasis of the word "optional" is of no concern in that matter (especially since you say that you voted for having it as non-optional rule), since I'm arguing the concept as a whole ...

Seriously... You need a researcher, proofreader, bitchboy, whatever I'd do just about anything to help you with that.

I need an SR4 where I can totally rip up the existing totem structure.

I never really got the impression anywhere that the power point cost increase was permenant. Unless, of course, the adept never picks any sort of Way in which to focus their development of abilities.

*erm* The rule specifically says that the GM may increase the power point cost of any power that he deems as "out of the Way" by 25%.
There's nothing in the rules that allows to get back those 25%, even if the mindset of the Adept in question is adjusted to this new path within his "Way".
Pretty much as with the voluntarily geased powers. You cannot remove such a geas in any way (at least not by the rules), even if you as player were willing to pay the difference later on. No refunds in either direction.

Thus (to stick with my example of the Speaker that aquires a Killing Hand (e.g. Killing Hand S), once he adopted the von Clausewitz' doctrine outside his previous mindset) the Adept would have to pay 2.5 power points for Killing Hands S. But once he'd fully coped with this change in his mindset, he'd not get those 0.5 power points back for other powers.

Yeah, but which is more likely to happen.

Quote from SOTA64, page 60, second column, The Lost:

Are you referring to a different part of the rules? That paragaph doesn't say what you just said. It refers specifically to adepts who have strayed from or lack a way. Now, I guess it's possible you could extend that to powers that aren't in line with the way, but the way I read it is that if an adept is starting to stray from his philosophy, it becomes harder for him to focus his powers, so he pays higher (and possibly temporarily loses powers) while he's straying.

I've thought the same exact thing, although my disdain happens to fall upon Dove. Close second being Turtle.

That wouldn't fly in my games, though I don't particularly have anything against the idea. Mainly though, in my view, what seperates shamans from crackpot mages who follow the Banana Slug God is that shamans have an established religio-mythological background in their totem. Basically, a sizable history shared with other people. The guy following the Banana Slug God still functions as a magician though. So do Psionicists. Which makes all kinds of theories about totems, but the idea behind them (in my view) is that the totems are about shared belief. Meaning there's a whole culture of people who feel the same way about the totem as you do, and have an established structure of taboos and ritual that goes beyond just that shaman's personal interaction with the totem.

So if a player wanted to be a shaman of the Mama Cat or a hip-gyrating Elvis God, he'd have to show me a culture that has believed in such a thing, historically.

No, I'm refering exactly to that paragraph.
The GM may increase the cost of adept powers for those Adepts who have strayed from their path. My example on that Speaker particularly made use of a situation where the Adept goes astray from his original "Way" where he didn't have any powers that could "kill". If a GM in this situation enforces that 25% rule, that's permanent. Or do you see anything that allows the Adept to regain that extra expendure?

Would you then be so kind and explain to me what defines "to stray from a way" for you?

And what would define such a straying from his philosophy? My example of the Speaker Adept was that the Adept initially was all around resolving conflicts with words. That was / is his Way upon character creation. Now the events in his life to make him realize that this isn't going to get him everywhere. He then turns to the mentioned von Clausewitz' doctrine, where war (= brutal force) is another means of politics (=talking) and now wants this Killing Hands power.
In my definition of "to stray" that's a kind of straying from his original "Way". Thus this would qualify for said 25%. However, since the emphasis was that "Ways" aren't rigid, such a change of mindset should be possible ...

The general problem to me is that practically all powers can be rationalized within any of the official "Ways", especially since individual mindsets can take serious twists ...

I personally know sweet Fanny Adams about Amerind religion. I do know that an exchange student at college who was an Amerind flicked through the SR1 I'd left lying around the commonroom one day and laughed herself silly at the totems. It kind of put me off playing them.