[cantrip]

Some excellent advice in this thread! If you have player's that want to play rounded out characters with lower dice pools, reward that behavior! Not blatantly unfair rewards, mind you, but sometimes when players build combat-skill based characters, they do that because they aren't aware of other options (don't get me wrong, I love to play a combat beast on occasion!  )

It will take more work, but show your players you can be successful with both types of characters. Give karma for good ideas and smart playing as well as combat prowess. Maybe Mr. Johnson appreciated your discretion and smart decisions and kicks in some extra Nuyen or special gear -- or another job!  Combat teams are a dime a dozen - a team of troubleshooters that have all the skills to adjust quickly and quietly  to situations, well that's where the big pay days start.

Heck, take a look at Tucker's Kobolds if you haven't read about them -- perfect example of 'weaker' characters playing smart and with tactics!

[prismite]

The best way to deal with this is to use the right of veto during chargen. If one of the characters, for any reason, doesn't fit with the power level of the group, or the power level you wish the campaign to be at, send them to redo it. Things like this only get into play because the GM allows it.

I am going to start doing this. Better to be a straight shooter and be thought of as an A-hole than to let it get out of hand and make EVERYONE disgruntled.

[Tenlaar]

I would highly recommend discussion and the power of the veto before the game starts over giving people a single bit of extra reward for playing a non-optimized character.  Nobody is going to enjoy an argument over why the street sam is being punished for being a good street sam, and that's exactly what extra rewards for non-combat characters is doing.

They don't call them street samurai for their problem solving skills.

[cantshutup]

Giving rewards for good roleplaying is not equal to 'punishing the combat character'. One of the best roleplayers at our table is a phys.ad, he gets his Edge refreshed during play for genre-appropriate descriptions and extra roleplaying karma after the run. If the street sam is playing a street sam beautifully he should get rewards too! And well, if he doesn't, he still gets those large dice pools to fall back on.

[prismite]

Like I said, I have never played a game of SR (before this one) where 15+ dice was not considered extreme. In all my other experiences, the group policed themselves to keep a lower profile so as to not bring HTR teams down on themselves.

And as a member of my table often says "Just because you CAN do something doesnt mean you SHOULD." I could make an adept with an unarmed pool of 20 right at CharGen ... but that doesnt necessarily follow the spirit of the game. Well, to be fair, it MIGHT at your table, I dont know.

At the GenCon before this last one, my group ran into one of the game designers (whose name I totally forget at the moment, but he signed our books for us) was asked a question from one of my players.

"I took the Cavalier Sheriff and made a series of modification (including upgrading the gun to FA). Was this legal?" To which the guy said "Yes. But thats not really in the spirit of the game, now is it?"

Dont get me wrong, I'm totally ok with a runner w/ 200 karma earned having a high dice pool. Right out of the gate, though, it feels like there should be a control mechanism.

*Shrug* Maybe I'm just old school.

[Csjarrat]

Depends on your group mate, shadowrunner don't survive through being crap at their jobs. Decker has to be better than the spider and the Sam has to be better than corpsec. It's just part of the game. When the dicepools are 2x or more the npcs then yeah, it's getting silly and the GM needs to up the professional ratings of the npcs to scale

[Dangersaurus]

Heck, take a look at Tucker's Kobolds if you haven't read about them -- perfect example of 'weaker' characters playing smart and with tactics!

The only thing Tucker's Kobolds are good for are maybe for a laugh. Any enemy played intelligently should be a challenge, the only point of using a the weakest mook in to the game to do it is for psychological effect. If it's purely a metagame reaction to player power it seems like a jerk move to me. Top it off with the fact that most GMs have to "cheat" to get the results from Moore's article and to me it looks more like it's about putting players "in their place" for daring to get as powerful as the GM let them.

[Tenlaar]

Giving rewards for good roleplaying is not equal to 'punishing the combat character'.

Guess I could have quoted, I was really replying to this in particular.

If you have player's that want to play rounded out characters with lower dice pools, reward that behavior!

Giving one player something extra for having lower dice pools and being rounded out when you didn't tell the people up front that you want them to roll characters that way would not come across well to me, and will likely be seen as being punished for not following a rule you didn't know was in effect for many players.  That's all.

Though I will say that I personally do not really agree with the practice of giving players different amounts of karma or nuyen rewards based on something as ephemeral as what the GM happened to like that session.  It smacks too much of a performance rating for me and I don't think it's a healthy thing for group cohesion.

[cantshutup]

Telnaar, ah, I see. Apologies.

I can see where you're coming from with that second statement, but I guess I've become jaded and mercenary with time. If I was the one that saved everyone's bacon by asking the right questions, making good calls and planning for contingencies, I expect an extra karma point at the end of the run. (I actually don't get RP karma a lot - if at all; I get Brains Karma. Or, depending on your view, Genre Savvy-ness Karma).

I think it depends on your players a lot. If people start getting competitive and disappointed about not getting extra stuff, then it might not be the best thing, yes. But at the same time, people at the table who try harder might get discouraged because all that trying didn't get them any farther than the guy that just showed up and said "I guess I shoot the thing" a whole bunch of times.

the group policed themselves to keep a lower profile so as to not bring HTR teams down on themselves.

So do they simply have large dicepools or are they behaving like idiots too? Because no amount of dice will save a shadowrunner who's blown their cover and has those HTR teams on their tail. Just large dicepools are okay when they're using them in a smart manner. If they're cutting a bloody swathe through corpsec mooks every night and having armed carchases with Yakuza left and right sooner or later they'll meet people with even larger quantities of dice...

[Deacon]

First of all, I have a simple policy: "If the players can do it, so can the enemies."  If you can put together the close-combat character that rolls 30 dice in hand-to-hand combat, there's nothing preventing the opposition from doing so -- and the opposition has more resources to back these guys with. 

Second, out of character generation, I place an absolute dice pool limit for anything other than armor/soak rolls (which have to be pretty high to ensure basic survivability) at 20 dice.  If you have figured out how to set up your Con dice pool at 24 dice, that's nice -- I'm still only going to let you use 20 dice.  That being said, you may as well design your character to acknowledge that dice limit, and add a little round edges to your character. (I do like the rate of relaxing that limit at 1 die per 10 karma, though.)

Third, I look for ways to screw the party.  I don't always USE those ways, but I make sure they're always an option.  For example, the character who's hyper-focussed in Pistols -- what happens when he's facing guys who stay at Assault Rifle ranges?  He closes, they back off -- he's going to be at a disadvantage.  Or the character who had all the Qi Focuses -- and then had to cross into an area which turned off all his Foci.  And kept them off.

And there are some times when it doesn't matter how many dice you have, it's not going to help you in the slightest bit.  That security guard who's on alert and knows there are intruders in the area is not going to believe your Con roll when you show up in his zone, a stranger without identification -- He's going to shoot you and ask questions of your corpse.  I don't care if you're a pornomancer with umpteen-million dice to your Con, it's just not going to work.

Dealing with players who want to make overly-specialized one-trick-pony characters is easy.  Combat character?  Put them in a stealth-oriented run and make sure they know that if they blow stealth, the entire party gets penalized.  This way, sure, they can always resort to violence, but the group only gets paid half.

Dealing with the attitude that they NEED to specialize like this is harder.  The problem with Shadowrun is that almost everything is based on opposed dice rolls.  It's only natural to want as much dice as you can throw to beat the other guy.  I tried setting the opposition die pools low, to get players to realize they didn't need to have those high dice pools -- it only made them realize what bad-asses they were, compared to Joe Blow the Rent-A-Cop.  Incentive doesn't work as well as limitation.  I hate being the restrictive GM -- and the bully -- but getting them to do it themselves doesn't work.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

For my money, they shouldn't be running into the 30d6 combat monsters during ordinary runs.  Extraordinary runs, sure, but someone who's designed to mop the floor with people should mop the floor with people.

Sit down with your players - all your players.  Find out what kind of game they want to play.  Do they really want to play Combat Run?  If so, go to town.  If not, then give the 'Gotta Have It All At 6' player the gimlet eye, but let him build his character that way - with the clear understanding that he's going to spotlight only as frequently as everyone else.

Spotlight time is important.  Does Mr. 3's and 2's have unique skills?  What's that you say - he took locksmith at 2, which nobody else has?  Guess what, the very next door is going to have a standard SuperHeavyDuty TrollProof^TM manual-key-lock.  If you want to up the pressure, force them to split the group, and put those locks in both places, and allow Mr. 3&2 to say sarcastically to GHIAA 6 "well, I guess you shoulda taken some other skills besides beat-his-ass-up, huh??"

A couple years ago, over at DragonCon, I played in a late-night game where several players (used 'gimmie' characters from the GM) said, "It's ShadowRUN - if you're not running away from something, you're not doing it right."  This being the same guy who got into a bar brawl and nearly got his character greased.  (I knew I should have killed him, but that's bad-mood-making in a pickup game.)  The point here is that he figured 'combat combat' was the name of the game, when really it's 'spotlight spotlight'.  Every player's character, at some point during every game, should get a chance to shine - and not always for the same thing, either.  And after a few games where CombatBoy doesn't get a chance to slaughter the Hordes of Mordor, let him go to town - but then go back to letting everyone else do their thing.

Otherwise, remind everyone that they aren't individuals; they're a team, and need to support each other.  If that involves having lesser outright skills but thinking ahead (as I would guess Mr. 2&3 does), then that's as good - or better - than just having lots of dice to throw.  And you, as GM, should highlight that.

[Glyph]

Like I said, I have never played a game of SR (before this one) where 15+ dice was not considered extreme. In all my other experiences, the group policed themselves to keep a lower profile so as to not bring HTR teams down on themselves.

And as a member of my table often says "Just because you CAN do something doesnt mean you SHOULD." I could make an adept with an unarmed pool of 20 right at CharGen ... but that doesnt necessarily follow the spirit of the game. Well, to be fair, it MIGHT at your table, I dont know.

At the GenCon before this last one, my group ran into one of the game designers (whose name I totally forget at the moment, but he signed our books for us) was asked a question from one of my players.

"I took the Cavalier Sheriff and made a series of modification (including upgrading the gun to FA). Was this legal?" To which the guy said "Yes. But thats not really in the spirit of the game, now is it?"

Dont get me wrong, I'm totally ok with a runner w/ 200 karma earned having a high dice pool. Right out of the gate, though, it feels like there should be a control mechanism.

*Shrug* Maybe I'm just old school.

No, you're  not old school.  You are just playing a slightly different. more low-powered variant of Shadowrun.  I have played in "street level" games, but I don't consider them the default - basic Shadowrun has the premise of above-average individuals working under the table doing difficult, dangerous work.  The archetypes (which are far from optimized) include characters with 15+ dice pools.  I think a dice pool cap of 10 punishes certain specialties a lot more than others.  Combat is an opposed dice pool contest with lots and lots of potential negative modifiers for movement, cover, visibility, and so on, where the weakest statted goons have 6 dice to roll for their passive defense.

Ito doesn't seem like the "munchkins" are the real problem here - it is the other players, who apparently have to be just as good as them - why are they treating it like a competition?  Although the optimizers may be part of the problem, too, if you associate low dice pools with a low profile (meaning that the players with high dice pool characters like to shoot everything in sight, maybe?).  Part of the problem is that you don't have to be a glaring hyperspecialist, or a rules weasel, to be good at something - a decent Attribute, a skill of 6 with a specialization, and maybe some bonuses from gear, augmentations, or magic, and there's a high dice pool.  The pitfall of a character creation with so many options is that you can make so many different kinds of characters, with wildly varying levels of experience and effectiveness.

I don't think a character with middling dice pools always has to feel useless.  They need for the GM to give them opportunities to use their skills, like the locksmith example earlier.  I mean, compare the street samurai and the bounty hunter.  The former is a lethal killing machine, while the latter rolls less than 10 dice for combat.  But what about jimmying a lock, or scaring a captive into talking, or finding food/water/shelter in the Barrens/wilderness, or climbing over a chain link fence, or rappelling down a cliff, or changing the getaway vehicle's flat tire, or spotting an ambush?

[MachineGunBallet]

I said this on the other thread but I'll say it again;
"This kind of discussion goes on with every RPG (Roll Playing Game, not Rocket Propelled Grenade).

I haven't played much Shadowrun yet, but you wanna define the strengths of the fight based on the toughest players, and give the rest something to do.  You don't have to make the fight super tough for all the players at the same time.  Quite the opposite, you may want to leave holes in the opponents defenses that are sufficient for one or two players to shine.  That's not always obvious, but cool when it works.  (Like facing overwhelming force while indoors, but when the players get outside, the Rigger's Drones get to lay down some serious lead.)

One thing that comes from experience is to be careful not to geek the softer characters in the energy given off between the toughest players, and the toughest opponents."

I tend to be against over optimized characters, and I prefer variety myself, but you can see where this troll came from;
http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=16871.15

I'm rather proud of that munchkin.


The question is not how strong the characters should be.  The question is how much fun your players will have.  Players have fun if you can find a way for them to shine in the adventure.  That means your decker needs to deck, and your healer needs to heal, etc.  Your combat dudes need to lay waste.

My team has a Decker, a Rigger, a combat mage, an intelligence mage (Face), Knuckles the Troll, and Shreddie (small tank, loves his monowhip).  Everyone is pretty specialized, the Rigger and Decker are the least useful in direct combat, they are medics, and helpers at the back.  If you really wanna make a Troll cry, try a blast door, and wait for him to cry "Decker!"  In the group, only the Intel Mage is relatively low across the board (lots of skills at 10), but he will grow to be kick ass awesome in no time.

In Pathfinder, my players repeatedly and stupidly learned the hard way that they had to work as a team to win.  Leaving a clear path between a traditional troll and a sorcerer was a quick way to loose the sorcerer.  Tough guys can't just go all glory hunting for themselves, they have to hold the line and earn A's in "Standing in the Way 101", then hoping he healer they were protecting can keep them standing.

If you want your game to be fun, concentrate on finding ways for your players to shine.

(By the way, my players had their first fight on the weekend.  Everyone had fun and contributed their bits.  In combat, Shreddie, Knuckles, and the Combat Mage laid waste.  Heads and bodies were flying, then the lighting ball cooked the rest.)

[prismite]

Appreciate everyone's thoughts.

I've kind of changed my mindset about what is too strong and what is munchkin. I'm trying to not focus on the persons dice pool anymore and just run the game.  Fortunately there was a situation recently in my game where a 32-soak dice troll caused a failed mission and tons of stress for the other players without my causing it

[Shadowjack]

This seems like jealousy to me. One guy wants to play a more novice runner and the other wants to play an elite one. Either lay down some rules before the game starts or teach the jealous player that this is not a competition. In my group, we intentionally play super weak characters just for fun. When there is someone powerful in the group we are grateful for it. If all 3 of us want to be powerful, we go for it. The GM can balance his campaign around the power level of any group so this really shouldn't be a problem.