Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Seeker on <07-14-11/1530:05>
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So, I'm formulating a new campaign in my head, and I'm going to run the system for a few friends.
I have a few limiting factors I'd like to throw in, and as the topic asks, I'm wondering if I'm being too limiting.
1. Dice pools for newly-created characters are limited to 15. This is to ensure that my low-combat game isn't dominated by one person who mops the floor with goons before anyone else has even a chance to sweat. I believe it also breeds a sense of new-ness to the characters and the group.
2. Stick and Shock is fixed damage. Because... waaaaay too powerful otherwise.
3. Emotitoys only add +1 to social checks, and only if you take the highest rank of them. Otherwise it's a flat bonus based on rank for Judge Intentions check. A lot of people might like these toys, and I can see the software being useful. But, I said useful. Not necessary for every hardened Shadowrunner to have a pink unicorn crawling around on his chest.
4. Restricted Gear positive qualities only works to 16F availability. Balance issues.
5. Require at least 10BP spent on contacts unless you've taken Hung Out to Dry. Keeps people from taking a single fixer, and saying... "Um... I'm new in town."
6. 1 rank in etiquette is required, unless you have uncouth. Otherwise, why haven't you been shot yet in a city like Seattle?
7. I'm trying to decide if I like allowing second-hand cyber/bioware, or more likely, requiring a quality to take it. (This is one of my lesser problems, I might just allow it for sake of simplicity.)
Thanks in advance for any criticism or enforcement of these views.
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All sounds legit to me. I'd suggest the Second-Hand 'Ware restriction to only Alpha-Grade. Second-Hand Standard Grade has some serious costs to it that go beyond mere nuyen.
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6. 1 rank in etiquette is required, unless you have uncouth. Otherwise, why haven't you been shot yet in a city like Seattle?
Living in the Barrens/gang member till you started shadowrunning - You aren't well travelled enough to have a clue on the wide variety of etiquettes in Seattle but aren't uncouth.
Maybe let them default on etiquette with full CHA for natural ability and common sense. It could be that thy need Common Sense 5BP quality to not have etiquette if you want.
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6. 1 rank in etiquette is required, unless you have uncouth. Otherwise, why haven't you been shot yet in a city like Seattle?
Living in the Barrens/gang member till you started shadowrunning - You aren't well travelled enough to have a clue on the wide variety of etiquettes in Seattle but aren't uncouth.
Maybe let them default on etiquette with full CHA for natural ability and common sense. It could be that thy need Common Sense 5BP quality to not have etiquette if you want.
My argument would be that even as a gang member, you learned how to act around certain people. Different gangs have different customs, and you knew not to wear red or spit on the ground at this particular place. And this was universal between the bum on the corner, the mother just trying to make ends meet, the gang member, and the shadowrunner.
Almost everyone knows that the best thing to do in an uncomfortable situation is sit tight, shut up, and try not to do anything. Sure the suit is itchy, and you might be used to jeans; but don't scratch... that guy might be watching. That's almost universal.
If you are uncouth, I'd argue that it isn't that you don't know. It's that you don't care.
Now, defaulting on full charisma is a very good idea. But, I could almost see those four points blown on 1 point of etiquette being the entry fee to even being a runner. You have to survive your first meet with the fixer somehow.
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Seeker if you are going with the logic of etiquette 1 because you had to survive that first meet with a fixer somehow then you almost should outlaw the uncouth negative quality. In for a penny in for a pound after all.
It doesn't look too harsh to me. Especially if you are looking for a more street beginning type feel.
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Seeker if you are going with the logic of etiquette 1 because you had to survive that first meet with a fixer somehow then you almost should outlaw the uncouth negative quality. In for a penny in for a pound after all.
It doesn't look too harsh to me. Especially if you are looking for a more street beginning type feel.
Fair point.
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Played a lot of games and no you're not being too harsh. It's better to take a firm hand and prevent issues than letting them happen which wastes your and other player's time.
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You could make this alot easier on yourself and just limit the BP value to like 300. Then they have to make hard decisions on how to spend those points. Plus then you can begin a game where they're newer to the Shadows and might be crawling out of the Barrens and it would also make them less ready to dive into combat (assuming they care about staying alive).
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Personally, I find that limiting things like availability and dice pools do a lot more than lowering build points - I kind of prefer 400 build points, which lets you create a lower-powered but well-rounded newbie runner. The trouble with 300 build points is that 150 build points to spend on Attributes means that metatypes, with their Attribute bonuses, will be significantly more powerful than humans. And skills will suffer, too, because Shadowrun has a lot of "must-have" skills such as perception and dodge. It's nice when the players can buy those, and still have some points left to differentiate themselves a bit more.
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I've gotta agree, capping dice pools an availability is much more effective at getting a beginner feeling character than lowering the Build Points. Lowering build points tends to just make the character feel...incomplete rather than restricted.
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Another thought I've had is about electricity damage.
After running a few mock combats with a friend, I'm thinking I'd rather have the resist for falling unconscious after taking electricity damage be a cumulative test. After a Humanis Goon owned the Troll Enforcer because of a grazing hit because he only rolled two successes on his resistance test, this seemed a bit much.
I don't mind the RAW for goons, but for PC's or Primes I think I want it to be something like...
The threshold is one for every 3 levels of electricity damage you take. You get damaged for 6Se, it is a [2] threshold. You have to take 3Se to even be required to make the roll, and that's at a [1]. Grazing hits half the stun value of the damage.
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On the requiring 1 in etiquette- you have to keep in mind what skills mean. Someone with a 0 in a skill doesn't have no skill in that area, they have the same skill level as a typical member of society. The vast majority of people don't have any ranks of etiquette. Even a 1 means you are better than average at something. Someone without ranks in social skills are not social morons (unless they took Uncouth). You understand basic social rules and customs, you don't make and idiot of yourself when you have to interact with someone. A character with ranks in etiquette has a chance to influence people by making them believe they belong is a particular setting. The character without etiquette can walk into a bar and order a drink and some soywings without a problem. The character with etiquette can walk into the same bar, order his drink, take a look at the customers and the decor, realize that the place is a hangout for fans of a particular combat bike team. He can modify his language, demeanor, and attitude to fit in and make friends, maybe getting the bartender to spill some information of to get the patrons to say if they saw a particular ork in her on Tuesday night. They guy with no etiquette probably won't have much luck trying that, (unless maybe he has a knowledge skill to bring into or something similar) but he isn't going to drop his pants and sing the national anthem of Quebec either.
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On the requiring 1 in etiquette- you have to keep in mind what skills mean. Someone with a 0 in a skill doesn't have no skill in that area, they have the same skill level as a typical member of society. The vast majority of people don't have any ranks of etiquette. Even a 1 means you are better than average at something. Someone without ranks in social skills are not social morons (unless they took Uncouth). You understand basic social rules and customs, you don't make and idiot of yourself when you have to interact with someone. A character with ranks in etiquette has a chance to influence people by making them believe they belong is a particular setting. The character without etiquette can walk into a bar and order a drink and some soywings without a problem. The character with etiquette can walk into the same bar, order his drink, take a look at the customers and the decor, realize that the place is a hangout for fans of a particular combat bike team. He can modify his language, demeanor, and attitude to fit in and make friends, maybe getting the bartender to spill some information of to get the patrons to say if they saw a particular ork in her on Tuesday night. They guy with no etiquette probably won't have much luck trying that, (unless maybe he has a knowledge skill to bring into or something similar) but he isn't going to drop his pants and sing the national anthem of Quebec either.
I could make the argument that to be even be a runner, one would need to be able to find a fixer and this means fitting into one portion of society. This doesn't make much a difference for groups (where the face is your in), but my real defense of the Etiquette 1 is that your group has to fit together with your group.
This makes little difference if your group belongs to the same gang, but when you've got a dwarven Native American mage, a former wageslave hacker, a deserting UCAS soldier, and a ganger who learned how to make his charm work for him all working together... You learn a bit more than your average Joe about blending in to different cultures.
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Etiquette isn't used to keep you from putting your foot in your mouth.
It's used to help you remove it.
Really, the skill is not what you think it is.
Other than that, stick-n-shock is only particularly good against low tech baddies. Just give any real opposition some non-conductivity.
Hung Out to Dry with no contacts means free points. It makes no sense to excuse them from that expense.
You might consider making emotisofts give a +2 bonus, like the smartlink. There really are no other bonuses for social pools outside of being an adept.
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If you want to limit gear, you can do what one of my GMs does: nobody starts with an F rated item, except for fake SINs (because you can't really live without them). The rest is like the regular rules. And it's not that much of a problem, because you can do a lot with R rated items. Beginning shadowrunners simply don't have access to sniper rifles and such things. Small exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis, but it's not often done.
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I could make the argument that to be even be a runner, one would need to be able to find a fixer and this means fitting into one portion of society. This doesn't make much a difference for groups (where the face is your in), but my real defense of the Etiquette 1 is that your group has to fit together with your group.
Again, the etiquette skill isn't basic social abilities. It is assumed that all characters have that unless they have a quality that says they don't. Etiquette is the ability to manipulate people by playing a social role. Most people walking around out there don't have have any ranks in it, and I can think of a ton of character concepts (sprawl ganger, jarhead fresh out of the military, ace hacker who isn't that good with people) that probably shouldn't have it from an rp point of view.
As for how they found a fixer- a friend, mentor, or partner introduced them, the fixer found them (always on the lookout for good talent) or they just asked around. Etiquette isn't the same things as streetwise. One can have street knowledge or investigation skill in spades without having etiquette. Consider a character who is an ex-cop. He might have a ton of street knowledge, but because he always had a badge to work with he walks, talks, smells, and looks like a cop, and it accustomed to beating answers out of people instead of talking them out. A character can know the score, they just aren't very good at sweet talking some one or making some one think you are something that you they not.
I am not saying the Etiquette isn't a useful skill, but you seem to think that someone without it is simply unable to function, to the point that they couldn't get along with other members of their group. I think you are looking at the skill the wrong way (in fact the nature of shadowrun skills the wrong way) and that there are many characters who would not necessarily have it.
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I understand everyone's view. Different strokes. My group has seen the rules, and with an exception for my view on electricity rules, there was no argument against any of it.
One of them brought up a point, and if I remember correctly, that one point of etiquette was free in earlier editions? But that was back when etiquette was specific to the culture. Maybe this is where my view on the necessity of this comes from, but it is still there.
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Etiquette is the ability to manipulate people by playing a social role.
Interesting. Book doesn't say it that way. Maybe people have different interpretations....
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Re: Am I being too harsh?"
Honestly, the only time I think a GM is being too harsh is when the players feel that way. The game is supposed to be fun, if rules changes and enforcement make it not fun, then it is too harsh. Some players love to get screwed by their Johnsons and earn every little bit. Some just want to kick back over beer and pretzels.
Sounds like your players are cool with the rules, good enough IMO.
Edited for punctuation.
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I've always been of the mind that the GM is being too harsh when he hits the players with a newspaper...
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That has an iron bar in the center.
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I could make the argument that to be even be a runner, one would need to be able to find a fixer and this means fitting into one portion of society. This doesn't make much a difference for groups (where the face is your in), but my real defense of the Etiquette 1 is that your group has to fit together with your group.
Again, the etiquette skill isn't basic social abilities. It is assumed that all characters have that unless they have a quality that says they don't. Etiquette is the ability to manipulate people by playing a social role. Most people walking around out there don't have have any ranks in it, and I can think of a ton of character concepts (sprawl ganger, jarhead fresh out of the military, ace hacker who isn't that good with people) that probably shouldn't have it from an rp point of view.
As for how they found a fixer- a friend, mentor, or partner introduced them, the fixer found them (always on the lookout for good talent) or they just asked around. Etiquette isn't the same things as streetwise. One can have street knowledge or investigation skill in spades without having etiquette. Consider a character who is an ex-cop. He might have a ton of street knowledge, but because he always had a badge to work with he walks, talks, smells, and looks like a cop, and it accustomed to beating answers out of people instead of talking them out. A character can know the score, they just aren't very good at sweet talking some one or making some one think you are something that you they not.
I am not saying the Etiquette isn't a useful skill, but you seem to think that someone without it is simply unable to function, to the point that they couldn't get along with other members of their group. I think you are looking at the skill the wrong way (in fact the nature of shadowrun skills the wrong way) and that there are many characters who would not necessarily have it.
I can see both sides of the equation. No one will hire a uncouth loudmouth for illegal activity on a handshake deal that could blow up in their face and get themselves busted. A paranoid Johnson could easily geek a squad he didn't like in the parking lot over a bad feeling much less some clown he thinks just disrespected him. Then there is the House rule, not your house but Greg House. Someone so socially venemous that most have to stop an impulse to smack him upon meeting him. Money seeks him out as he is the expert in his field and if you want the best you have to deal with it. Basically when you are the absolute best you get to be a wide receiver prima donna, at least til you lose a step. The House exception is the only one but a powerful one to the uncouth rule. When your the only game in town for something people need everyone else will grin and bare it til they don't have to.
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I can see both sides of the equation. No one will hire a uncouth loudmouth for illegal activity on a handshake deal that could blow up in their face and get themselves busted. A paranoid Johnson could easily geek a squad he didn't like in the parking lot over a bad feeling much less some clown he thinks just disrespected him. Then there is the House rule, not your house but Greg House. Someone so socially venemous that most have to stop an impulse to smack him upon meeting him. Money seeks him out as he is the expert in his field and if you want the best you have to deal with it. Basically when you are the absolute best you get to be a wide receiver prima donna, at least til you lose a step. The House exception is the only one but a powerful one to the uncouth rule. When your the only game in town for something people need everyone else will grin and bare it til they don't have to.
Pretty much spot on how I see it. After hearing a few viewpoints, and looking at the rules a bit more, I can say that I may lean more towards just defaulting with total charisma when not an opposed social check.
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OK sooooo I took a different approach at Character Gen.
Nothing over Availablity 8 unless cleared by me and with good reason
No Contact ratings above 4 and required at least 2 contacts per person
No more than 2 initiative passes per PC
If you try and take a negative quality that doesn't really pertain to you or something dumb like a Severe Allergy to Comet Dust
I'm going to make that situation happen and your going to regret it.
I have final say on what is and is not broken/out of control.
Does this seem too harsh?
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Not if you want mages to be even more better than everyone else than they already are.
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I don't understand.
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I don't understand.
Mages can circumvent your restrictions pretty easily, like by taking the improved reflexes spell and a magical tradition where they'll have a beefy drain pool.
@Everyone: What's with there being so many GMs that feel the need to come up with some sort of custom restrictions on character creation? Has it never occurred to you that the present character creation rules are the product of hours of playtesting and game balance exercises? Tweaking character creation, like all other house rules, should be carefully evaluated before you do it. If you can't truthfully answer yes to the following questions you've just made a bad rule (asking if you're being too harsh is a sign that you can't answer yes to at least one of them).
1) Does this rule make the game more fun for the players?
2) Does this rule make the game less complicated to play?
3) Does this rule reduce the paperwork burden for players/GM?
If those aren't 3 solid yeses, you're making a house-rule mistake.
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What's with there being so many GMs that feel the need to come up with some sort of custom restrictions on character creation?
I think you're reading into it a little bit. We all have our ideas of what's "reasonable" and "logical" in the game. For me, I don't think high end cyber and weapons are a reasonable thing for a beginning runner to have. In the end, we all make tweaks to make the game fit what we''re picturing in our head. I know that when I come up with a campaign, I usually come up with some sort of background framework to give the players direction. It may not tweak the character creation process, but it definitely puts some parameters on the character concept. I just find it's easier if you focus your Mountain Dew and Monster addled players in a particular direction instead of letting them fly where their ADHD minds will take them.
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Every character creation tweak that limits gear is a tweak that favors magicrun.
I always read a long ways into games, particularly rules, and particularly the effect that rules will have on the metagame and the clerical game, and have good reason to do so.
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OK sooooo I took a different approach at Character Gen.
Nothing over Availablity 8 unless cleared by me and with good reason
No Contact ratings above 4 and required at least 2 contacts per person
No more than 2 initiative passes per PC
If you try and take a negative quality that doesn't really pertain to you or something dumb like a Severe Allergy to Comet Dust
I'm going to make that situation happen and your going to regret it.
I have final say on what is and is not broken/out of control.
Does this seem too harsh?
I don't think this is too harsh, just have some systems(which could be as simple as talking to the guy and telling him not to do it) in place in case you have a magician with a spell book full of health spells to get around your IP and Stat maximum. I think caps are a better approach than low BP to encourage low power games. Low BP characters just tend to end up hyperspecialized.
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I've played in a couple rather fun games where the GM limited us by stating how many BP we could spend in given areas, as well as required stuff for 'free'. Rather than limited dice pools or gear, we had limited (or in some cases, expanded) options in resources spent on them.
Oh, and Matrix users get 3 initiative passes when in hot-sim; you'd have to ban Hot-sim modules. This also majorly gimps hackers.
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I think forcing players to take 1 point in etiquette doesn't make much sense because plenty of people have no etiquette and sometimes they get away with it, other times there are consequences. It is always better to have etiqette than not and that is the point of paying for it.
Second hand cyberware should be okay I think because it is much worse than new cyberware. I don't think I would use it personally for most of my characters because I'd rather save my essence. For me, it's balanced and comes down to personal choice. I can see why you might find it problematic if players and taking cyberware from dead bodies and selling it frequently, if that's the case you could just make your npcs pay very low amounts of nuyen for it.
I also feel like players shouldn't be forced to spend any points on contacts. I consider contacts people that can do something of real value for you and many people simply wouldn't know anyone like that personally. For example, due to my line of work irl I have some celebrity friends that I can call on for favors and sometimes they ask me for favors as well. If I didn't have my particular job I would never have met these people and I don't think I would know anyone personally that could benefit me much in terms of illegal activity. Also, keep in mind that not everyone in Shadowrun is shadowrunning or planning on any kind of combat, crime etc, there are plenty of regular people working simple jobs and living simple lives and they usually wouldn't know anyone worthy of being considered a "contact".
If someone is playing a face they should have a reason for knowing all of their contacts in their background. Even if they're new to the area there are many ways to explain their connection with the contacts they chose.
I certainly think house rules are okay as long as everyone agrees. I've made lots of house rules in games over the years and in many cases it greatly enhanced the experience.
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Restricting gear availability hurts mages a little bit and hurts everyone but mages a ton. Mages are already really good and this makes them better.
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I've always been of the rule of thumb that as long as you're not burning character sheets in a pyre while dancing around naked like some pseudo-paganistic ritual, you're not being too harsh.
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'Course, the pagans in my groups back then would have given me a serious beating for making fun of their religion. And rightly so. :P
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I've always been of the rule of thumb that as long as you're not burning character sheets in a pyre while dancing around naked like some pseudo-paganistic ritual, you're not being too harsh.
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'Course, the pagans in my groups back then would have given me a serious beating for making fun of their religion. And rightly so. :P
I had a table rule in my 2nd Ed D&D game that if I ever saw you play that that character before I would take your character sheet and burn it in the sink.
I was really sick of Helmut coming to every game with the same Raistlin clone....
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I had a table rule in my 2nd Ed D&D game that if I ever saw you play that that character before I would take your character sheet and burn it in the sink.
I was really sick of Helmut coming to every game with the same Raistlin clone....
Or the fact that every single Paladin ever made by anyone ever was basically a "Detect Evil" sensor. And woe be the gamemaster who wanted some form of trickery, or betrayal; for the Paladin
would smite it down before it came to be!
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^ There's another sort of DnD Paladin?
(Not counting one that's made at creation to turn evil later to get entry into some cheesy cliché Prestige class?)
You might consider making emotisofts give a +2 bonus, like the smartlink. There really are no other bonuses for social pools outside of being an adept.
First impressions, Synthetic Pheromones and Phereomone receptors for a total boost of +7 to all social skills is nothing?
... and whoever wrote Greg House is Uncouth really has it completely wrong imo. It really takes an expert to so easily manipulate people and still appear uncouth. High social skills doesn't necessarily mean being liked, it means getting your way through manipulation, and he's a pro at that.