For 10 BP, you get +2 for all active skill tests on your home turf. Assuming all your players have characters with the same home turf, this could get nasty. Every meeting with the Johnson will be on their home ground (+2 Con, +2 Neg), as well as every potentially violent confrontation (+2 Dodge, +2 Pistols, +2 Spellcasting, etc.).
Of course, the flip-side is that the GM could give every NPC the same quality...
Full Version: Home Ground Quality - too powerful?
it also depends on how broadly the gm interupts "home turf" to me, at most, it might be a couple of blocks around a house. No saying that the barrens is home turf without some major explaining
There have been various versions of this throughout the editions, and they have all been stupid. Why are my skills higher in my living room than in yours? Why are my skills higher hanging around outside my QuickStop, but not one in Denver?
Arguably skills like Street Etiquette and knowledge skills would suffer negative modifiers away from a familiar environment. But this Quality is retarded.
Arguably skills like Street Etiquette and knowledge skills would suffer negative modifiers away from a familiar environment. But this Quality is retarded.
Aku -
True, but even the most hardened GM is unlikely to eliminate candidates such as Dante's Nightclub or worksites such as the Boeing dockyards...
True, but even the most hardened GM is unlikely to eliminate candidates such as Dante's Nightclub or worksites such as the Boeing dockyards...
As I read it , I feel more like its just a +2 dice modifier to the TEST., not a modifier to the skill. So then its not very overpowered. Its really limited by geography, and its not a gimme edge.
Zen, have you ever had somewhere you just flat out know so well you can see every last detail with out even being there? You know exactly where the best cover is, how to throw things that are assured to not hit anything.
As I play wheelmen a lot, I like to specify sections of highway. So all his tests on the 22 miles of Rt 90 in Belleview are somewhere I would know every last ripple in the pavement.
Zen, have you ever had somewhere you just flat out know so well you can see every last detail with out even being there? You know exactly where the best cover is, how to throw things that are assured to not hit anything.
As I play wheelmen a lot, I like to specify sections of highway. So all his tests on the 22 miles of Rt 90 in Belleview are somewhere I would know every last ripple in the pavement.
Well, again, it depends on what the rational they give me for having Dante's Nightclub as "home turf" I would want to see some pretty hefty time spent in a place like that to be able to consider it "home turf" you know pretty much everyone that works there, you know alot of the clientle's habbits, what they smoke, what they drink. You know all of the pipeways, and which you can safely crawl through and which you can't, etc, etc.
| QUOTE (Spookymonster) |
| For 10 BP, you get +2 for all active skill tests on your home turf. Assuming all your players have characters with the same home turf, this could get nasty. Every meeting with the Johnson will be on their home ground (+2 Con, +2 Neg), as well as every potentially violent confrontation (+2 Dodge, +2 Pistols, +2 Spellcasting, etc.). |
You'll be able to always dictate where a meet is made? Or control where a violent confrontation is going to happen? So in your experince 'runners can squat and let the world come to them?
| QUOTE |
| Of course, the flip-side is that the GM could give every NPC the same quality... |
In the past these types of character options usually end up being primarily NPC used. I'm not talking just SR either. Why? Because PCs tend to be a mobile bunch. *shrug*
P.S. One mistake a GM might make is to let someone with this Quality get the bonus while they are sitting in the apartment but VR and wandering the Matrix. I'd rule in no uncertaint terms that the Quality is about where the mind is, not the meat.
| QUOTE (blakkie) |
| You'll be able to always dictate where a meet is made? Or control where a violent confrontation is going to happen? So in your experince 'runners can squat and let the world come to them? |
Not always, no, but often enough to make in a concern (turning over extraction targets, meeting contacts, basically any time the runners have enough leverage to dictate terms). Hell, what about just plain-old pre-run prep work? Binding spirits, gunsmithing, enchanting, etc.
A good GM appears to be the only defense against this spiraling out of control.
| QUOTE (Spookymonster @ Sep 1 2005, 07:39 AM) |
| A good GM appears to be the only defense against this spiraling out of control. |
A good GM is the only true defense for a game spiraling out of control.
Though not a lot you can do with stuff that is normally done at home/shop/lodge in downtime. So Binding, non-pressing build/repair stuff, etc. Well i'm not sure about Binding, i'll have to read the description first to make sure it isn't something that is more on the astral side. I'd definately limit Home Turf in scope to a single plane.
Another potential loophole someone might try is for a rigger to name a certain vehicle as their home turf. So +2 whenever they are driving around in it. Not sure i'd allow that, at least not for any checks that also deal directly with things outside. Have to mull that one over a bit. Even if i did it would be for one specific vehicle, and if that vehicle was ever destroyed or lost the Quality would loose it's benefits.
EDIT: That is also something to keep in mind. If the runners keep dragging as much as they can back to their Home Turf eventually it will catch up to them. "Don't shit in your own backyard."
Yeah, but also if the bonus exists people realize it exists too in an abstract sense. Home turf as it were. So Johnsons maybe will only go to a neutral place...
Or if you abuse the combat aspect of it eventually it'll get blown up.
Or if you abuse the combat aspect of it eventually it'll get blown up.
The quality specifically states a large building or small neighbourhood as the upper limit, or an infrequently encountered environment (desert in a Seattle based campaign was the example given)
To be honest, most of the time I don't think it would be worthwhile for players, I mean, there is only so much you can pull back to your home ground, and only so much you want to pull back so close to home.
To be honest, most of the time I don't think it would be worthwhile for players, I mean, there is only so much you can pull back to your home ground, and only so much you want to pull back so close to home.
| QUOTE (Zen Shooter01 @ Aug 31 2005, 10:08 PM) |
| Why are my skills higher hanging around outside my QuickStop, but not one in Denver? |
Watch Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back sometime (Though it'd help to be familiar with Kevin Smith's entire New Jersey Saga).
You'll see a good example of two guys who are totally thrown off their game when hanging out in front of a convenience store that isn't their usual one.
| QUOTE (Ranneko) |
| The quality specifically states a large building or small neighbourhood as the upper limit, or an infrequently encountered environment (desert in a Seattle based campaign was the example given) |
To draw another reference from Pop Culture, take the Sewer Urchin from the cartoon version of The Tick. Totally inept except for the one episode where the Tick and friends actually had to follow him down into the sewer to chase down the criminal of the week. Once Sewer Urchin was in his home environment, he kicked much ass.
| QUOTE (Spookymonster) | ||
Not always, no, but often enough to make in a concern (turning over extraction targets, meeting contacts, basically any time the runners have enough leverage to dictate terms). |
Okay. What kind of idiotic runner turns over an extraction target on his home turf?
Hell, I don't even want the Johnson to have a clue where my home turf is for a meet. That's just asking to get killed.| QUOTE |
| Hell, what about just plain-old pre-run prep work? Binding spirits, gunsmithing, enchanting, etc. |
Uh... well, yes. I'd be binding spirits in my lodge, rather than off in a park somewhere, or gang turf. Same for gunsmithing, etc. "Home turf" means you've invested a lot of your time and life into an area, so you're intimately familiar with it.
Picture the talismonger whose home turf is the block around their shop. They keep their lodge upstairs, and they're so in-tune with the mana and activities around that they know the best ways of manipulating it for their ritual (and aren't distracted by that nut Tommy outside on his daily drinking binge). Similar thing for your gunsmith, rigger chop-shop, etc. They know what's going on around them, where their equipment is (same place as its been for years), where to go down the street for a spare part or a fast lunch, how to tell the local gangers that you'd appreciate them keeping rabble out of the shop for an hour or so, etc.
| QUOTE |
| A good GM appears to be the only defense against this spiraling out of control. |
That's true for any rule, though.
| QUOTE (Kesh @ Sep 1 2005, 11:43 AM) |
| Okay. What kind of idiotic runner turns over an extraction target on his home turf? Hell, I don't even want the Johnson to have a clue where my home turf is for a meet. That's just asking to get killed. |
You're taking the phrase 'Home Ground' too literally. It doesn't necessarily mean the place where you live; it could be the neighborhood you grew up in, or where you used to work. Consider a street kid that survived on the streets of the Puyallup Crime Mall, or a runner that used to have a day job moving freight down on the Tacoma docks, or an ex-cop that worked Yancy Street for 20 years. None of these locations would be considered unusual for clandestine meets, nor would they necessarily tip off anyone to your actual living space.
| QUOTE (Spookymonster) | ||
You're taking the phrase 'Home Ground' too literally. It doesn't necessarily mean the place where you live; it could be the neighborhood you grew up in, or where you used to work. Consider a street kid that survived on the streets of the Puyallup Crime Mall, or a runner that used to have a day job moving freight down on the Tacoma docks, or an ex-cop that worked Yancy Street for 20 years. None of these locations would be considered unusual for clandestine meets, nor would they necessarily tip off anyone to your actual living space. |
Thats true sppoky, but i think, in order to keep the boni, you'd still have to be semi regularly AT the place. Think about how it feels going back to an old neighborhood, that you havent been at for 5, 10 years. Yea, the place feels familar, but it also feels different. I think i'd remove the bonus from a place for someone that claims "home turf" on his favorite playground from a kid, and then acts surprised when he goes back for meet and finds out that it's been abandoned by the kids and now is inhabited by BTL adicts only.
| QUOTE (Spookymonster @ Sep 1 2005, 11:56 AM) | ||
You're taking the phrase 'Home Ground' too literally. It doesn't necessarily mean the place where you live; it could be the neighborhood you grew up in, or where you used to work. Consider a street kid that survived on the streets of the Puyallup Crime Mall, or a runner that used to have a day job moving freight down on the Tacoma docks, or an ex-cop that worked Yancy Street for 20 years. None of these locations would be considered unusual for clandestine meets, nor would they necessarily tip off anyone to your actual living space. |
Aku's points aside, if you want to keep getting the bonus you have to keep going to the place. Eventually it catches up with you.
Don't shit in your backyard.
THats my point too Blakkie, and if you're at a place, you'll likely be seen, and a corp can find that out...
Fair enough. Hmm... what about something like this:
Character must own/rent a low-class lifestyle within the Home Ground boundaries. If the character rents, failure to pay the lifestyle cost results in immediate and irrevocable lost of the quality. Destruction of the Home Ground territory releases the character from this obligation (obviously).
Character must own/rent a low-class lifestyle within the Home Ground boundaries. If the character rents, failure to pay the lifestyle cost results in immediate and irrevocable lost of the quality. Destruction of the Home Ground territory releases the character from this obligation (obviously).
While I could see that working for Home Grounds that are city neighborhoods, what do you do about Home Grounds that are wilderness environments that are outside the nominal campaign setting? I suppose lifestyle costs could cover camping/survivalist gear, but requiring a treehugger elf type character to get out of the city and go camping in the woods one weekend a month to maintain familiarity sort of weakens what's supposed to be the limiting factor of 'Environmental" Home Grounds: that they don't come up frequently in the campaign.
An interesting paradox: for the character to claim something as his Home Ground, he should spend as much time as possible there. However, spending too much time there would make it an invalid choice for the Home Ground quality....
Once, just for the hell of it, I made a character with Homeground: Sanity. The GM, after reading my sample RP, decided it was acceptable.
Paul, i would say that it would depnd on how "nature" it is, if it's really an outdoorsy area (one outside the city, and beyond the suburbs) Than i as a gm eould require less frequent visits, however, as it's "home turf" i would think, even if its not required, you character would likely STILL make occasional visits just to "get back to nature"
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