Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: enderci on <10-16-14/2220:41>
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I've been perusing a lot of posts of this board, and I've been seeing a lot of street scum level games or characters posted on these forums. That's not to say that I don't see the normal level of character generation, but I've also seen a lot of street scum. My question is, do you guys tend to see that as a better starting level for characters? Is it a preference thing, an issue of balance, or just that experienced players tend to need the extra challenge? I'm getting ready to GM my first game in SR5 (and I haven't played in about 3 years), and one of my two confirmed players has never played Shadowrun. Thanks for any input guys
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From a player skill level aspect, i find street scum to be a bit simpler because you don't have as many options really. The down side, at least for me, is it lessens your ability to do things in more creative ways (I prefer to go more a Leverage or Burn Notice route usually rather than straight up knock down the door).
But it also depends on how you want to do the campaign. If you want them mainly dealing with gangs and stuff, street scum is perfect, but if you want them doing corp runs, you probably need the wider skill set, but that's just my opinion.
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If you're asking if it'd be a good "starting point" for inexperienced players, I'd say no. Always play the game "vanilla" before you do any variants, is how I always feel. In particular, because the game is set around the idea of the normal level runners, and so it will make it easier for the GM to not accidentally overwhelm the players/characters, which is already relatively easy to do in Shadowrun.
As for why it's so popular, I think it's a flavor and storytelling thing rather than anything with balance or challenge. A lot of GMs and players like the "Gangland" style or the more grime-and-grit potential from a Street Scum game. They want the characters to feel like they're working hard to survive, and the lower power level ends up putting more of a focus on the roleplaying. Essentially, it makes the characters feel more "average joe" than the normal process, which presents you as a character who is already skillful or resourceful enough (if inexperienced) to sell their skills in the shadows. Street Scum games are more likely to be based around the characters' personal motivations since they aren't quite good enough to just go find a fixer and make some nuyen, and thus need a different reason to be doing what they're doing.
But as I said, I wouldn't say it's a better "starting level". I'd say it's the opposite, intended for more experienced roleplayers and GMs. The GM in particular needs to have a more involving story than normal to keep the characters motivated. They also need to think more about what they're sending the PCs up against-- Because remember, just because the characters aren't as powerful, doesn't mean all the security guards, Knight Errant patrols, critters, and gang members all got less skilled or violent. Additionally, PCs are likely to be more polarized in skills. This is both due to a lack of resources and because of the story. Non-combatants may entirely lack combat skills instead of them just being tertiary or secondary, while combatants and magicians may be "one trick ponies" with only one area of focus (aspected magicians are more common in Street Scum as well, I feel). This means the GM has to consider each character individually when planning a run, so they don't unintentionally become the weakest link and drag the whole team down.
And, though this is a bit unrelated, for a newcomer, I'd want to offer them the "full Shadowrun experience" and let them make a normal character so they have a bit more to play around with, and thus use and experience when they play. Let them get a taste of the barrens and squalor for sure, but also let them see the high tech wonders and amazing magical intrigue.
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There are some downsides to Street Scum, because you risk the Adepts and Mages to completely exceed other characters in combat ability. As such I always suggested combining SS with SL and adding a cap to Magic, if you really want a campaign on that level. It can make a really nice campaign, but it requires an experienced GM with a really good story. And don't forget, Shadowrun is dangerous enough already without the power drop, so you risk turning new people off. A D&D mentality is easily altered with a slap on the wrist normally, but in Street Scum it may kill them.
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I thought the BCDEE/CCDDE thing of Street Scum already made Adepts and Mages hard to make builds for?
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The impact of a high Magic rating is quite substantial, especially when you get a Summoner in the mix. Compared to their opposition, an Adept with >15 dice on their gun skills and a high defense, or a Mage who lets a 16-defense 15-offensive Force 6 Spirit slip, are at a completely different level even if they are highly specialised.
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I'm with Micheal. The game was done to play full shadowrunners. Playing lower level is just more problem and the game becomes unbalanced.
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The impact of a high Magic rating is quite substantial, especially when you get a Summoner in the mix. Compared to their opposition, an Adept with >15 dice on their gun skills and a high defense, or a Mage who lets a 16-defense 15-offensive Force 6 Spirit slip, are at a completely different level even if they are highly specialised.
What you've said is very true, especially with the spirits thing. If OP has been gone for a while from Shadowrun, he may not recall how incredibly powerful and problematic spirits are. A F6 spirit of any kind is a powerhouse and poses a serious threat to people meant to be fighting fully-built runners. With a Street Scum campaign, nothing that is within reason for any of the characters to be fighting will stand a chance of even damaging said spirit. Consider RAW, it only takes, what... 3 MAG and maybe a 4 in Summoning for a F6 spirit to be possible at all, and anyone interested in summoning regularly is gonna have more than that. An NPC aspected magician-summoner could pull that off (though at great risk to themselves with a low success chance).
Point being that it's not just a big threat, but also terribly easy to accomplish for a PC even with Street Scum rules.
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I prefer the default game, but I can see why people gravitate towards the street scum rules. Some of them may be used to games where you start out as a weak and inexperienced character (like first level in D&D), then eventually work your way up. The problem is, a beginning shadowrunner is like a beginning doctor - sure, you're just starting out in your career, but you are hardly beginner-level at what you are doing.
Shadowrun has always been a tricky game to balance. I prefer balancing spotlight time to a vain attempt to balance power levels. You can make characters all up and down the scale with the default rules. But that disparity is more pronounced when you use either of the low-powered rules, because they limit some things more than others.
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Thanks for all the responses guys. I do have difficulty remembering how powerful spirits and adepts can be, I just have to keep telling myself that they are batman wizards, and eventually it'll stick. I'm glad to know that the predilection towards street scum that some players/GM's have is not a balance issue, but more of a preference thing.
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I'm gravitating towards the street scum level myself - it seems to be more, well, in-tone with the novels and most of the precon adventures.
The way I always told my friends when making Shadowrun characters (in 3e, which I ran until actually LOOKING at 5e) is that 'typical' shadowrun characters are, in D&D terms, around 9th level - just making a name for themselves, powerful enough that street scum are a threat only in big numbers, and so on.
I'm going to be honest here, I have NOT run 5e, and never touched 4e - I've been 3e since it was printed (and hell, I've still got my 1e hardback book, so yeah), and so there are nuances to the rules that may make my suggestions just completely idiotic. Don't be afraid to tell me.
While in a lot of ways magic-based characters being leagues stronger in a street scum campaign makes sense in-universe, (it's one reason that they gravitate towards the shadows and why corps are willing to hire them, SIN or no), making them a touch less world-shaking might be a good idea. Perhaps limiting all spellslingers and conjurers to Magic*1 when casting/conjuring, and having physical drain be at Force>.5? This can be circumvented by spending some Karma later on, to represent stepping from 'apprentice' to 'journeyman'. Not sure how much such a thing should cost, but it should probably be more than just 2-3 runs worth.
Adepts are trickier. Perhaps having them start with Magic*.5, or Magic*.75? Seems restrictive without crippling them, a thing to avoid.
One thing that has me concerned is technomancer versus decker. A street-level decker can BARELY afford the two cheapest cyberdecks, while a technomancer is full-bore whether street or normal. Perhaps a solution like the Adepts, with any starting Resonance being *.5 or *.75, with fewer Complex Forms and/or Skills? I don't know enough about having technomancers to know if that would cripple them or not.
I'm in no great rush to get my own Shadowrun campaign started (still have Deadlands: Hell on Earth in my docket), so I've got no urgency on using these ideas on reducing magic-based characters to their mundane counterpart's level.
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My issue with the low powered options in the BBB, their only adjustments they make is to resources and gear availability. Bringing down dice pools in general would have an impact on all characters equally vs current methods.
I think I'll put some work into this and make a more in depth post on the process, it will probably involve an entire priority table.
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My issue with the low powered options in the BBB, their only adjustments they make is to resources and gear availability. Bringing down dice pools in general would have an impact on all characters equally vs current methods.
I think I'll put some work into this and make a more in depth post on the process, it will probably involve an entire priority table.
You're only looking at "Street Level". Street Scum changes it so rather than assigning ABDCE, you pick between BCDEE or CCDDE. This effects all the character archetypes and as a result lowers dice pools a bit as opposed to just changing resources, and doesn't touch gear availability at all.
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I'm aware of the difference.
Even then it doesn't reduce relevant dice pools significantly. All it does is reduce the range of skills characters have access to. Lowering the starting skill cap to 4 would keep them from being hyper specialized to the point where they are equivalent to normal starting characters in their chosen role.
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I think it's fun to sometimes start a campaign at Street Scum level, run a couple of quick runs, and then suddenly skip ahead a year, bump up the characters a to Standard or Prime level. You would be surprised how differently people build characters if resources are given that way instead of all at once. Much more organic and story oriented to me...
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I've been perusing a lot of posts of this board, and I've been seeing a lot of street scum level games or characters posted on these forums. That's not to say that I don't see the normal level of character generation, but I've also seen a lot of street scum. My question is, do you guys tend to see that as a better starting level for characters? Is it a preference thing, an issue of balance, or just that experienced players tend to need the extra challenge? I'm getting ready to GM my first game in SR5 (and I haven't played in about 3 years), and one of my two confirmed players has never played Shadowrun. Thanks for any input guys
I also think people have been playing standard gen games for awhile now and are just looking for something different. A new angle and new adventure options to go with it
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My issue with the low powered options in the BBB, their only adjustments they make is to resources and gear availability. Bringing down dice pools in general would have an impact on all characters equally vs current methods.
I think I'll put some work into this and make a more in depth post on the process, it will probably involve an entire priority table.
You're only looking at "Street Level". Street Scum changes it so rather than assigning ABDCE, you pick between BCDEE or CCDDE. This effects all the character archetypes and as a result lowers dice pools a bit as opposed to just changing resources, and doesn't touch gear availability at all.
where is this Street Scum thing listed? I was getting it confused with the Street Level as well; but Street Scum intrigues me... is it just standard creation (normal Karma and all that) past the different choosing of priorities?
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Yes, everything else but Priorities is normal.
The rules for it are located on page 354 of the Core Book.
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I'm aware of the difference.
Even then it doesn't reduce relevant dice pools significantly. All it does is reduce the range of skills characters have access to. Lowering the starting skill cap to 4 would keep them from being hyper specialized to the point where they are equivalent to normal starting characters in their chosen role.
Keep in mind that a skill of 4 in SR5 is much different than a skill of 4 in SR4. The Professionalism rating: 1 gangers and street scum have pistols skill of 4; they have 18 points of Attributes and 22 points in skills. If you limit PCs to this level, then keep in mind that this means an even fight with the near-weakest of opponents is a 50/50 proposition - which will generally mean dead runners in short order.
That's my biggest problem with the low-power/street scum rules. The game just doesn't scale that well at the lower levels, because they made low-level mooks more of a threat.
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So what's the real difference between the Street-Level Play rules on 64 and the Street Scum rules on 354, from a practical standpoint? It seems that Street-Level Play emphasizes skills and/or magic a lot more, whereas the Street Scum could let a player start as a decently-cybered sammy or decker (with potentially 275k to equip themselves), but cuts down on the skills and attributes - which means spending your starting Karma on those instead of Qualities, or making sure that the group itself is tightly-knit with all the important areas covered.
In fact, it really feels like the Street Scum is better balanced than Street-Level Play, because picking a magic character is a no-brainer in SLP, but for SS you really have to choose what's important and what's not.
I... like the Street Scum rules. A lot.
Why the DEVIL is there Street Level and Primer Runner rules in the chargen section, and Street Scum and High Life in the GM section, when the second rules are much better balanced?
I love Shadowrun, and 5e is interesting enough to actually make me want to run it (instead of 2e/3e which I've been doing for, oh my god, over twenty years now), but maaan... this book NEEDED nastier editors. Not just for minor things, but major things too.
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The difference between Street-level and Street Scum (outside of story reasons) are these.
- Street Level assumes that you are well skilled/trained etc, but haven't had enough jobs to acquire Karma and Money. Most people don't afford 300,000+ nuyen in 'ware without some runs under their belt.
- Street Scum assumes that, because of your situation and environment, you are not as skilled/trained, but you still have experience in the "real" world. Hence the karma and Priority arrangement.
The practical difference between them is that Street Level itself is horridly unbalanced and favors Adepts, Magicians, and Technomancers (but not Mystic Adepts) over everything else. Street Scum, on the other hand, is pretty well balanced, although some archetypes still have trouble fitting everything in. Street Scum does a much better job at making Shadowrun feel like Street Level was supposed to; characters who are just starting out and still honing their abilities.
So, yeah, most people like Street Scum a lot. Also, yes, Street Scum and High Life (which I really like, except they need to bump up nuyen levels to compensate people who depend on 'ware as opposed to magic) needed to be in the Chargen section, and they are really much better balanced.
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I'm aware of the difference.
Even then it doesn't reduce relevant dice pools significantly. All it does is reduce the range of skills characters have access to. Lowering the starting skill cap to 4 would keep them from being hyper specialized to the point where they are equivalent to normal starting characters in their chosen role.
Keep in mind that a skill of 4 in SR5 is much different than a skill of 4 in SR4. The Professionalism rating: 1 gangers and street scum have pistols skill of 4; they have 18 points of Attributes and 22 points in skills. If you limit PCs to this level, then keep in mind that this means an even fight with the near-weakest of opponents is a 50/50 proposition - which will generally mean dead runners in short order.
That's my biggest problem with the low-power/street scum rules. The game just doesn't scale that well at the lower levels, because they made low-level mooks more of a threat.
If you're running a game at these levels youre not using goons out of the book. Though that is one thing I've found sorely lacking in the last two editions is alot of the lethality is gone.
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The goons out of the book run the gamut from knuckle-dragging thugs who work for groups like Humanis, to elite special forces. Obviously, you won't use the latter against runners who are just starting out. But if you have to tone down the Professionalism rating: 1 and 2 goons, then it might be a sign that the characters are too weak. It's one thing to be street scum, but I still envision hard-bitten gangers, alcoholic ex-cops, junkyard-scavenging techies, and cocky wiz-gang kids - not squatters or back-alley muggers.
It is magic and technology that give runners their edge. If you want more starting-level runners, I would recommend using standard character creation rules, but limiting Magic, Resonance, and resources to priority C or lower (with the added caveat that you can only spend metatype points on Edge, not Magic or Resonance). The runners will still be tough, just leaner and hungrier.