[All4BigGuns]

Nowhere near sufficient. Again, this is a perfect example of why you don't take system abusers into account when designing character generation.

[FST_Gemstar]

You can do more than one tour and/or add other modules to your life story and/or add your own skills to this. It doesn't include the division you worked in, which provides more skills, nor the attributes gained.  But it take this as a estimate for what an average single tour would provide a character (not counting other things they have learned in their life).

[All4BigGuns]

No you can't. You can take more than one module in the Real Life section, but you can't take the same one more than once. It specifically says that.

[FST_Gemstar]

I'll clarify, I mean take it more than once to simulate the skills being in the military would give you.  I am not saying make a character in Life Module, but to look at Life modules if you want to try to simulate what the game thinks certain kinds of history would provide a character. 

[MijRai]

Yeah, I'm not using those to represent a character's stats as a result of their past.  Serving 4 years in the military gets you three skills and a group that makes little sense (most people go their entire military service without touching a pistol or longarm). 

[Critias]

1)  Anyone that's insisting a basic stint in a non-combat MOS gets you 5's in all your physical attributes and 5's in several physical skills is plainly not looking at the power curve and dice pool expectations of SR5 the same way the SR5 design team is (and keep in mind, several of us have been there).  Handily enough, the core rulebook gives you stats for elite corpsec and elite special forces types, right there, in the Helps and Hindrances chapter, and you can clearly get an idea of what "the best of the best" look and function like (and they're, oddly enough, not much different from what some of you are arguing a one-term rookie straight out of Basic looks like). 

Adjusting your expectations is a big part of any edition change, in any game.  One of the goals of SR5 was to get people starting out at a little bit lower baseline, and leaving them more room to grow.  You can disagree about whether or not it should have done so (and believe me, some of us did), but saying it's bad at its job because it succeeded at something it set out to do is kind of silly.

2)  Believe me, the high prices on augmentation, decks, etc, have nothing at all to do with "sacred cows" or "tradition."  They came about because of a hotly contested formula, a brand new thing.  Brand new.  The prices are as low as they are because some of us fought tooth and nail, using prior equipment prices as a precedent, in order to get those prices cut at the 11th hour.  There's nothing wrong with complaining, but please get your facts straight before you do.

[Herr Brackhaus]

I feel like a virtual mic needs to be dropped, because that post was the bomb, Critias. That makes me much more comfortable with my decision to start my group out with dice pools that some people on this board would have decried as many, many things, none of them good.

All in all, the game is about having fun, and I feel like the SR5 ruleset does a good job encouraging this no matter where your table is on the powerscale. Want to play gangers fighting over corners? There's ways to do that. Want to play the blackest of blackops, tacticool operatives? There's rules for that too (still no tanks, though! ).

[All4BigGuns]

Adjusting your expectations is a big part of any edition change, in any game.  One of the goals of SR5 was to get people starting out at a little bit lower baseline, and leaving them more room to grow.  You can disagree about whether or not it should have done so (and believe me, some of us did), but saying it's bad at its job because it succeeded at something it set out to do is kind of silly.

You don't weaken the baseline to 'give room to grow' you fix the problem of exponential advancement costs.

2)  Believe me, the high prices on augmentation, decks, etc, have nothing at all to do with "sacred cows" or "tradition."  They came about because of a hotly contested formula, a brand new thing.  Brand new.  The prices are as low as they are because some of us fought tooth and nail, using prior equipment prices as a precedent, in order to get those prices cut at the 11th hour.  There's nothing wrong with complaining, but please get your facts straight before you do.

If that's the compromise reduction, then someone wanted to go far too overboard with the pricing as they're WAY out of line as it is.

[Critias]

Adjusting your expectations is a big part of any edition change, in any game.  One of the goals of SR5 was to get people starting out at a little bit lower baseline, and leaving them more room to grow.  You can disagree about whether or not it should have done so (and believe me, some of us did), but saying it's bad at its job because it succeeded at something it set out to do is kind of silly.

You don't weaken the baseline to 'give room to grow' you fix the problem of exponential advancement costs.

There are multiple ways to do things.  In SR4, it was a problem to many people that players could start out effortlessly with 20+ die pools, with their attributes and skills (more problematically, skills) at about as high as they'd ever get.  The decision was made to change that.  It was changed. 

You're free not to like the way it was changed, but it's important that you understand it was changed.  It didn't happen by accident, and you can get a feel for the expected die pools and competency levels for SR5 by looking at the NPCs and, to a lesser extent, the archetypes presented in the core book.  Doing that will show you that a 5 attribute and 5 skill is actually really pretty impressive and expert, not the baseline physical stats of some schmuck who just finished BCT.  Look at the stats given for corporate security or police patrolmen.  That's the realm of 3s-4s, not 5s-6s. 

Again, adjusting your expectations is one of the key things to do when any game goes to a new edition.  Ever.  Understand that old die pools aren't the same as new die pools.

2)  Believe me, the high prices on augmentation, decks, etc, have nothing at all to do with "sacred cows" or "tradition."  They came about because of a hotly contested formula, a brand new thing.  Brand new.  The prices are as low as they are because some of us fought tooth and nail, using prior equipment prices as a precedent, in order to get those prices cut at the 11th hour.  There's nothing wrong with complaining, but please get your facts straight before you do.

If that's the compromise reduction, then someone wanted to go far too overboard with the pricing as they're WAY out of line as it is.

NDA.  There are things I'd like -- love -- to say, but can't.  I said what I did just because it'd be nice if folks didn't trot out their absolutely baseless opinions as facts (like blaming the high prices on 'old timers').

Say you don't like things, sure, but don't take wild guesses and shots in the dark about why things are the way they are, and who's to blame, okay?

[All4BigGuns]

There are multiple ways to do things.  In SR4, it was a problem to many people that players could start out effortlessly with 20+ die pools, with their attributes and skills (more problematically, skills) at about as high as they'd ever get.  The decision was made to change that.  It was changed. 

That those who considered that a "problem" were the ones listened to is the basis of what's wrong. It wasn't a problem, and it never will be a problem. You don't punish everyone because of what those who "game the system" do.

To be honest, the trend of continually weakening starting characters and making advancement more and more glacial due to low rewards and exponential costs is a very disturbing one. And it's all because of the attitude of certain camps that somehow having a bit more 'power' "kills RP and thought".

Say you don't like things, sure, but don't take wild guesses and shots in the dark about why things are the way they are, and who's to blame, okay?

There's a reason I use the word "seemingly" a lot. 

[Wakshaani]

Actually, advancement (which we'll discuss later in the other thread) has issues with time in the opposite direction. Back in teh day, having games that ran 2, 3, or more years was totally normal. Not *everyone* did it, true, but that was the expectation. More modern design takes the 3rd ed approach, which is that a gaming group will generally end after a year, so tries to adjust to that rate.

One issue that you had in 4th was that you started at the finish line. When you can start with a skill at 6, and 6 is the highest you can ever go, what do you do with XP as you play? If you start play with the best deck for your Decker, what do you buy later?

The level treadmill is an entire design discussion in and of itself, and having a 'variable speed setting' helps with that tremendously. D&D had it, Shadowrun hasn't ... but that doesn't mean it never will. You already have options for low-end street games and high-powered worldbeater games, tweaking XP is another 'setting' that can be adjusted.

Trust me, and Crit, when we say that there's a wiiiide variety of opinions ... some battles you win, some you lose, and everybody has to give ground now and then. That's just how working with a team *is*, you know? Teh big thing is to never take it personal and always try to be professional.

[All4BigGuns]

That was only a problem with where the absolute maximum was set. Raising the maximum could have been enough, but advancement would still be far too slow. The costs of advancement still needed to come down.

With how things work these days, a game needs to be designed assuming that a game will last, at most, three or four months. Anything longer is a pipe dream. If you have a game last longer than that, you are very, VERY lucky. Real life happens and it's more important than any game, and when it strikes games die out.

[Cash]

The problem with arguing opinions as facts, such as what's wrong with the system and how it compares with previous systems, is that your opinions are wrong, or they would be fact. It doesn't matter how loudly someone decries the changes made, or compares them to the way things used to be (especially since a lot of these same people complained about they were at the time then too), the fact that not one but two of the source authors have gone on record (rather diplomatically, I might add) and tried to explain the reasoning why things are the way they are (this would be actual fact, see above) means that your expectations and the actual reality are not the same thing. It's ok to have an opinion. It's perfectly fine to express that opinion. But to state that opinion as if it were gospel truth makes the person talking look like a know-nothing loudmouth.

This is not aimed at any one person. I've just seen a lot of this behavior on this thread.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nowhere near sufficient. Again, this is a perfect example of why you don't take system abusers into account when designing character generation.

There's no proof that this happened, and his is sliding pretty close to "some people are playing the game Wrong" territory.

[adzling]

I know you're all going to be shocked by this but I actually like the Srun 5e priority system and the characters it generates.
But then I run a persistent campaign running for over year now and no end in sight.

All of our runners get JoAT during chargen and diversify their skills cheaply post chargen. It's not a complete answer to your problems A4BG but it helps.

RE: military service how about a Quality that grants some additional skill points during chargen (not Karna).
For example:
Quality: Military Service
You went through basic training and a tour of duty (or similar) for the military of your choice
15 karma
grants either 3 skill group points OR 9 skill points.

(skill / group points are worth more than buying same via karma as they equally apply to higher rating buys)