[Leevizer]

Should there be a limit to how bad a gamemaster should allow someone to be in some manner?

As in, I can see a character with Charisma 1 and Uncouth, but what if we add Cyberpsychosis to that? That would either be free points to the player, since she wouldn't even TRY to interact socially except with the possible team and leave all of the other talking to the rest of the team, or just leave the character with a negative dice pool for all social tests which would instantly lead to critically glitching every test, or failing every test automatically?

[farothel]

I wouldn't allow this combination if I'm GM and I wouldn't take it as player.  You have to keep a character playable and that combination is not IMO.

[Glyph]

A flaw should only be allowed if it is actually a flaw.  Cyberpsychosis gives a penalty on social skill tests, with further negative results for a glitch or critical glitch.  None of these things apply to someone who does not even get to roll for social skills in the first place.

So either you treat a negative dice pool as an automatic critical glitch (meaning the character becomes an NPC after his first social skill test is called for), or the cyberpsychosis does not actually affect the character in any way.

Remember that the last stage of character creation is GM approval!  I would disapprove the combination.  It is either a cheap rules exploit or an unworkable set of flaws.  Plus, I personally believe that characters are more than a freeform creative writing exercise - they are intended to be used in a game where everyone is playing shady professional expediters.

Flawed characters are fine, but the character should still be someone who would plausibly have survived up to this point, with skills and abilities that would be useful to a team of expert criminals, and the ability to get along with people who tend to shoot you in the face if you are a liability or a threat.

And in a more metagame sense, characters should be designed to be a part of a game where everyone is trying to have fun.  Someone who is secretly working for Ares, who kills the rest of the team when they are in a helpless position, might fit the overall dystopian feel of the game, but I would still disallow it, because it would ruin everyone else's fun.  It would be different if the whole game was PC vs. PC, or it the player planned on playing the character as someone who would develop some qualms about killing these people that he has grown close to.  But I think players should always keep the other players, and the overall tone of the game, in mind when creating a character.

[Irian]

Personally, as a GM, I don't see it as my right to forbid anything. The only thing I can do is saying, that I will not gm for a particular player as long as the player plays that character. Not a very big difference, agreed, but imho there is a difference. As a GM, I think of myself as "only another player". I take the role of a gm, but that doesn't give me any right to decide about other people's characters. The only right I have, is to refuse to play/gm.

Uncouth + Charisma 1, for example, is imho one of the worse ideas you can have, as social interaction is a key ability for every shadowrunner. Adding cyberpsychosis is simply nonsense. With Charisma 1 + Uncouth alone, keeping your own connections from killing you will be one of the everyday adventures such a character will have...

In this case, it would depend on the question "Why"? I see 3 possible reasons:

a) Point Min-Maxing. I don't gm for people like that. Simple.

b) The player doesn't have enough experience to see that such a character would be a bad idea. I would talk to the player.

c) The player thinks, it's a good idea, has a good background for the character and knows how to roleplay something like that ("not talking, just shooting" is not the same thing as "roleplaying uncouth"). In this case, I would perhaps agree to gm with that character, but I would not want to promise that he'll survive long. Not that I would try to kill him actively, but let's be honest, such a character could survive in the real jungle very well, but probably not in the urban one for long.

[baronspam]

Should there be a limit to how bad a gamemaster should allow someone to be in some manner?

As in, I can see a character with Charisma 1 and Uncouth, but what if we add Cyberpsychosis to that? That would either be free points to the player, since she wouldn't even TRY to interact socially except with the possible team and leave all of the other talking to the rest of the team, or just leave the character with a negative dice pool for all social tests which would instantly lead to critically glitching every test, or failing every test automatically?

My take on things like negative qualities is that if the player takes one he is asking me to use it in the game at some point.  The character you describe would be just this side of divorced from reality, and really unable to interact with people in a positive manner. If as I GM i let you get away with "letting the other guys do the talking" then I am failing in my role.  At some point I would need to put a circumstance in a story where the character had to have a social interaction, knowing that it would fail, and the failure would hamper the characters.  Not necessarily kill them, not necessarily make the mission a failure, but make things alot harder.  If it never works against the character it really should not be worth any points.

Uncouth is one of the worst negative qualities in the game.  Combining that with a 1 charisma is just flat begging to be kicked in the jimmies.  Cyberpsychosis on top is over achieving.  The guy is a social hand grenade waiting to happen.  As GM I would feel that it was my responsibility to pull the pin every now and again.

[Leevizer]

Should there be a limit to how bad a gamemaster should allow someone to be in some manner?

As in, I can see a character with Charisma 1 and Uncouth, but what if we add Cyberpsychosis to that? That would either be free points to the player, since she wouldn't even TRY to interact socially except with the possible team and leave all of the other talking to the rest of the team, or just leave the character with a negative dice pool for all social tests which would instantly lead to critically glitching every test, or failing every test automatically?

My take on things like negative qualities is that if the player takes one he is asking me to use it in the game at some point.  The character you describe would be just this side of divorced from reality, and really unable to interact with people in a positive manner. If as I GM i let you get away with "letting the other guys do the talking" then I am failing in my role.  At some point I would need to put a circumstance in a story where the character had to have a social interaction, knowing that it would fail, and the failure would hamper the characters.  Not necessarily kill them, not necessarily make the mission a failure, but make things alot harder.  If it never works against the character it really should not be worth any points.

Uncouth is one of the worst negative qualities in the game.  Combining that with a 1 charisma is just flat begging to be kicked in the jimmies.  Cyberpsychosis on top is over achieving.  The guy is a social hand grenade waiting to happen.  As GM I would feel that it was my responsibility to pull the pin every now and again.

That was well said. Although just by having the Uncouth Charisma combination, the other players will know not to let her have any social interaction, which will hamper their game, even if the GM doesn't force the uncouth character into using her "awesome" social skills, since they would have to work with that character? Although I do agree that creating a situation where she would need her social skills would be a good idea at some point. It is a good idea to not kill the players for it outright, since that'd just be another way of saying "I don't approve this kind of character, screw you.". But hampering their progress on some other manner would be good, say, she needs to get information out of someone, but the only thing she is good at is pointing a gun or hacking the matrix?

Speaking of that example, what do you think would be a good situation to put that character and/or her group into? Something evil so the group is hampered, but not too evil so it won't cripple the whole scenario?

[Critias]

Exactly, Baronspam.

Any time you get points for something -- a Negative Quality in Shadowrun, a Flaw, a Disadvantage, all different names for different games -- it's you telling the guy running the game "I want this to come up.  It's such a hindrance to my character that I am adding it to my character sheet and integrating it into the math I use during character creation.  It matters, and I want it to matter.  I am earning points for it, so it matters to my character every bit as much as the Pistols or Spellcasting or Kung-Fu Awesomeness I spent those points on."

Anything else is just fluff.  And (naturally) I like fluff, don't get me wrong (I mean, duh, it's me)...but if it's something you're getting points for, it's something that should come up in play and matter.  Maybe not every job, maybe not every session, but often enough to count.

[SteelFox]

Actually, I think that the standard on the "munchkinness" bar should be set by the other players. Is everyone min-maxing, trying to be auto-sufficient in all aspects and selecting qualities that wouldn't actually hamper their character in any way just to amass karma/build points? If that's the case, I'd allow that player to make the social monstrosity he wants.

Now, if you have a group with players intent on making a balanced team, doing some actual roleplay and not worrying if their characters are one-man-armies, T-800 there would probably ruin the mood and the story for the others. Glyph's post kinda nailed it up there.

Anyway, you should try to convince your player that there are better paths instead of outright forbidding stuff. There isn't a hard rule on how much... Optimized... A character may be, but it is your job to point out that quality combinations such as this are a limitation in the system, not an opportunity to exploit it.

If I were in your shoes and convincing didn't work, I'd make his Cyberpsychosis slowly evolve into something that would be actually harmful as a negative quality should, like Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (AU, page 22). Then, if the character could recognize his mental problem and tried to fix it (by undergoing therapy, surgery and trying to socialize with others) he wouldn't suffer the TLE effects.