[Herr Brackhaus]

Power gamers tend to have very narrow opinions and make a ton of declaritive statements about particular aspects of the game

Said without a shred of irony. "Only a Sith deals in absolutes," says man speaking in absolutes.

"All extremes are bad. Except this one."

[All4BigGuns]

That may work out fine for you, but do you really think it is the same attitude that someone posting to this subforum will have?  Someone who is okay with playing a character with suboptimal choices made for roleplaying reasons has no reason to post that character here.  People post characters here to see if they mechanically work - although I have seen a few pure concept posts along the line of "How would you make this concept in the system?"  We are here to look at the nuts and bolts, not to give out warm fuzzies.  I think "Neat idea but...", followed by some solid advice on how to actually implement a concept, is being helpful, not trampling on a delicate snowflake.

I think you're very wrong here. Sometimes what you say might be accurate, but most times I think things are posted in this subforum because the poster is thinking "Hey, this is cool! I wanna share it!".

[Hobbes]

You can create very interesting backstory and that's why select low dodge pool and wonky skills. You put a lot of effort to the backstory and that's why your character is not the best character in the fight. And the first ork street samurai from the corebook kills him with a single shot with an assault rifle... It's time to create a new character.

5th Edition Shadowrun is moderately lethal game if your GM doesn't pull punches.  Most of the modules and missions out there have critical skill tests that presume you're capable of getting 4 hits in your chosen specialty.  If a poster comes here looking for advice, they're going to get advice to have a character that can survive and defeat standard enemies and succeed at the common difficulties you see in modules and missions. 

I have absolutely no idea why the exact same interesting backstory can't be used for a character with a good chance of success at moderate levels of difficulty.

[All4BigGuns]

You can create very interesting backstory and that's why select low dodge pool and wonky skills. You put a lot of effort to the backstory and that's why your character is not the best character in the fight. And the first ork street samurai from the corebook kills him with a single shot with an assault rifle... It's time to create a new character.

5th Edition Shadowrun is moderately lethal game if your GM doesn't pull punches.  Most of the modules and missions out there have critical skill tests that presume you're capable of getting 4 hits in your chosen specialty.  If a poster comes here looking for advice, they're going to get advice to have a character that can survive and defeat standard enemies and succeed at the common difficulties you see in modules and missions. 

I have absolutely no idea why the exact same interesting backstory can't be used for a character with a good chance of success at moderate levels of difficulty.

Helping someone achieve through advice is one thing, but telling them to ditch skills you* consider 'redundant' or to drop spells/skills you* consider 'useless' is another thing entirely.

(*) Generic 'you'


On another note, personally, I consider Perception to be the most 'wonky' skill. Being tied to the Mental limit, it is quite likely that a good chunk of skilled stealthers are going to be getting more hits than the 'defender's' Mental limit, thus making it impossible for them to spot him--don't really even need to go much into the double digits to pull that off.

[Whiskeyjack]

It helps that sensory enhancement mods add to the Limit.

Some skills are redundant or useless in the vast majority of games. This isn't really very controvertible, even if the GM should try to make everyone's investments feel useful, they don't think to or that's just not always possible. *shrug* I don't particularly like that this is how the game was designed, but they didn't ask me when they were writing it, so I feel no qualms telling someone to ditch a skill that they will likely get little to no return on.

[Shadowjack]

I have had long absences from these forums because of posters that I consider to be trolls and extremely abusive to the point where I no longer had any fun, and a lot of them used to post in this sub forum, all of whom were power gamers.

If someone is being abusive or a troll you have recourse. Flag the post.

Having any kind of discussion about the topic seems to always get power gamers fired up, as it did in this thread and many others.

You keep saying that you're NOT saying that some people are Doing It Wrong, then you say something like this. It's not a discussion when you imply people are Doing It Wrong by continually insist that you're not saying that even though it's clear to everyone what you're implying.

Power gamers tend to have very narrow opinions and make a ton of declaritive statements about particular aspects of the game

Said without a shred of irony. "Only a Sith deals in absolutes," says man speaking in absolutes.

The fact is that not everyone wants to use the 'best' pistol or omit 'crap' skills or 'useless' spells, etc. Anything in the books is open game and we can only decide the value we place on it personally.

Something something we don't know their context of posting etc etc I have no reason to believe you're arguing in good faith at this point.

1. I don't see the  point really, there are people that have been here for many years trolling and being abusive and they haven't been banned.

2.I said that because it's true. Every time these discussions pop up a power gamer makes an abusive post. I don't see why I'm not allowed to point that out.

3.Read what I said again. I said "tend", that is not an absolute, clearly. Saying "Never take the Pistols skill because it is shit" is an absolute. There is a huge difference.

4.I don't see what isn't valid about what I said. I don't see why you need any context, either. All the skills, guns and spells are in the book for a reason, do you disagree? I don't like the idea of teaching new players that useful things are useless because all of these things could save your ass.

I understand that you are a bit charged by this discussion since another poster called you a power gamer and you acknowledged it and didn't deny it. I want it to be clear that while I don't like power gaming I accept that it exists and that people should do it if that's what they find fun about the hobby. I am trying to demonstrate that there are multiple ways to approach character creation. I see absolutely no value in essentially removing a large portion of character options because they aren't up to par with other options, not unless it is your sole objective to be literally as proficient in your role as possible. Clearly there are certain options that are mathematically superior but when you pay $50 for a book boasting 100 weapons and you're only willing to ever use the 5 best ones, I think that is really unfortunate. It also leads to other issues such as reaching the conclusion that certain things are inferior are useless and later learning that it was not actually the case. I think of all the novels I've read and pretty much any vehicle, gun, spell, etc can pop up, that makes it really fun to read. I don't think the writers discern what the best stuff is and only equip their characters with those things, even the most powerful characters in the world use things that are not the best in their category and many times being able to show up with something truly innovative can be a lot more rewarding than bringing the same tools to every event.

Again, not trying to force my perspective on anyone, just like I think powergamers should exercise some caution when they give advice.

[falar]

On another note, personally, I consider Perception to be the most 'wonky' skill. Being tied to the Mental limit, it is quite likely that a good chunk of skilled stealthers are going to be getting more hits than the 'defender's' Mental limit, thus making it impossible for them to spot him--don't really even need to go much into the double digits to pull that off.

To spin off topic momentarily - I've considered removing Perception as a skill and making it an Intuition + Logic check. Qualities/Gear/Abilities that improve Perception checks would still do so, but the base would be Intuition + Logic.

[Facemage]

You can create very interesting backstory and that's why select low dodge pool and wonky skills. You put a lot of effort to the backstory and that's why your character is not the best character in the fight. And the first ork street samurai from the corebook kills him with a single shot with an assault rifle... It's time to create a new character.

5th Edition Shadowrun is moderately lethal game if your GM doesn't pull punches.  Most of the modules and missions out there have critical skill tests that presume you're capable of getting 4 hits in your chosen specialty.  If a poster comes here looking for advice, they're going to get advice to have a character that can survive and defeat standard enemies and succeed at the common difficulties you see in modules and missions. 

I have absolutely no idea why the exact same interesting backstory can't be used for a character with a good chance of success at moderate levels of difficulty.

In this answer I assumed such kind of backstory that you
a) share your attributes such that for example rea and int are both low
b) share your skill points to wonky skills (free-fall, running, first aid, biotechnology and so on), such that your average pool in your primary skills are not higher (or are even lower) than the archetype characters' respective pools.

I think that this kind of character cannot survive at moderate levels of difficulty. And that's why I think that Shadowjack won't get what he want. We cannot assume that all tables use rules in which a corebook archetype character is a prime runner level enemy, and more common enemies are weaker. For example in our table our gm said: your character should be able to win archetype characters easily. This technically means, that a sam should have automatics 6 with specialization and agility 6 with ware. And a mage's casting pool should be 14-16 in combat or area illusion spells and so on. I think that I later ask these questions from newcomers:
a) what are karma rewards of your table?
b) what is your typical enemy in the first run?
and base my comments to his answers to these questions. If the enemies are archetype characters, there is absolutely no room for at least many wonky skills and odd attributes. So, optimizing and powergaming will probably continue.

[Hobbes]

Again, not trying to force my perspective on anyone, just like I think powergamers should exercise some caution when they give advice.

Forums, emails, texts, ect are all poor forms of communication for certain things since you can't type vocal intonations and body language. 

I don't notice "YOU SUCK LOLOLOLOL" posted, or when it is that poster is quickly gone.  I do see a lot of "Skill X is a bad skill" or "Spell X is redundant with Y." or "You could move a couple stat points around to get better dice pools."  Those statements aren't personal, if a poster takes statements like that as a knock on a character concept... *shrug*   

[Hobbes]

On another note, personally, I consider Perception to be the most 'wonky' skill. Being tied to the Mental limit, it is quite likely that a good chunk of skilled stealthers are going to be getting more hits than the 'defender's' Mental limit, thus making it impossible for them to spot him--don't really even need to go much into the double digits to pull that off.

To spin off topic momentarily - I've considered removing Perception as a skill and making it an Intuition + Logic check. Qualities/Gear/Abilities that improve Perception checks would still do so, but the base would be Intuition + Logic.

Previous editions Perception was a stat check, no skills.  Might be all the way back to first though...

[FST_Gemstar]

I see you, Falar - Trying to justify that Narco'd Psyche addiction even more! ;-)

[Facemage]

On another note, personally, I consider Perception to be the most 'wonky' skill. Being tied to the Mental limit, it is quite likely that a good chunk of skilled stealthers are going to be getting more hits than the 'defender's' Mental limit, thus making it impossible for them to spot him--don't really even need to go much into the double digits to pull that off.

To spin off topic momentarily - I've considered removing Perception as a skill and making it an Intuition + Logic check. Qualities/Gear/Abilities that improve Perception checks would still do so, but the base would be Intuition + Logic.

This is a good suggestion, because it will free points to other skills. But powergaming does not stop here, because it only means lower priorities to skills...

[Shadowjack]

You can create very interesting backstory and that's why select low dodge pool and wonky skills. You put a lot of effort to the backstory and that's why your character is not the best character in the fight. And the first ork street samurai from the corebook kills him with a single shot with an assault rifle... It's time to create a new character.

5th Edition Shadowrun is moderately lethal game if your GM doesn't pull punches.  Most of the modules and missions out there have critical skill tests that presume you're capable of getting 4 hits in your chosen specialty.  If a poster comes here looking for advice, they're going to get advice to have a character that can survive and defeat standard enemies and succeed at the common difficulties you see in modules and missions. 

I have absolutely no idea why the exact same interesting backstory can't be used for a character with a good chance of success at moderate levels of difficulty.

In this answer I assumed such kind of backstory that you
a) share your attributes such that for example rea and int are both low
b) share your skill points to wonky skills (free-fall, running, first aid, biotechnology and so on), such that your average pool in your primary skills are not higher (or are even lower) than the archetype characters' respective pools.

I think that this kind of character cannot survive at moderate levels of difficulty. And that's why I think that Shadowjack won't get what he want. We cannot assume that all tables use rules in which a corebook archetype character is a prime runner level enemy, and more common enemies are weaker. For example in our table our gm said: your character should be able to win archetype characters easily. This technically means, that a sam should be automatics 6 with specialization and agility 6 with ware. And a mage casting pool should be 14-16 in combat or area illusion spells and so on. I think that I later ask these questions from newcomers:
a) what are karma rewards of your table?
b) what is your typical enemy in the first run?
and base my comments to his answers to these questions. If the enemies are archetype characters, there is absolutely no room for at least many wonky skills and odd attributes. So, optimizing and powergaming will probably continue.

I'm just relaying what the core book said, feel free to use the example characters however you see fit. I say they're Prime Runners because they are fully fleshed out characters with a writeup and built under the same system (or supposed to be) as player characters. That be definition makes them Prime Runners. I certainly don't think any of those characters would serve as a main villain in a long campaign, I don't even think they'd make that interesting of NPC's.

As for karma rewards, there are only guidelines in the core book and most people find them to be excessively low. Good luck trying to raise a skill from 6 or 13 during a campaign, you'd be playing for a damn long time even if you didn't use karma on anything else. I personally think the guidelines are really bad and I don't use them. As for typical enemies, that really just depends on the makeup of the group and what kind of game the GM wants to run. I don't use the example characters as a benchmark and I don't even look at them period. I view them as example characters that give an idea of what the archetype might include and if needed they can be used as a player character. You can say that there is no room for wonky skills but good luck when you jump out of an airplane while being shot at and you didn't take any skills to back it up. You can try to pick the overall most important skills but no matter what you pick you'll eventually find yourself in a tricky spot.

[All4BigGuns]

The archetypes in the book are what I would consider to be Prime Runners and do not represent normal opposition for the players.

Wait, what?! Sorry, but no. A Prime Runner is one that is MUCH more skilled than that. Prime Runners are experienced to the point where characters on par with the Professional Rating 6 NPCs are going to have a hard time.

[falar]

I see you, Falar - Trying to justify that Narco'd Psyche addiction even more! ;-)

Psyche is one of the best drugs in the game. Narco just makes it beautiful.