[Dinendae]

INT is also core to defense tests and initiative. Which everyone wants.

And a starting Int score of 3 is still good for a Face, and if I remember correctly there was some ware (Cyber? Bio?) that could be taken to increase that attribute. Not to mention all the many other ways initiative can be augmented.

[Whiskeyjack]

INT is also core to defense tests and initiative. Which everyone wants.

And a starting Int score of 3 is still good for a Face, and if I remember correctly there was some ware (Cyber? Bio?) that could be taken to increase that attribute. Not to mention all the many other ways initiative can be augmented.

The INT ware is bleeding-edge, insanely expensive, and caps at rating 2.

[Dinendae]

INT is also core to defense tests and initiative. Which everyone wants.

And a starting Int score of 3 is still good for a Face, and if I remember correctly there was some ware (Cyber? Bio?) that could be taken to increase that attribute. Not to mention all the many other ways initiative can be augmented.

The INT ware is bleeding-edge, insanely expensive, and caps at rating 2.

And can be bought later if they want to, or they can just increase the attribute via karma if they want to buy other ware. That still doesn't change the fact that a starting Int score of three is good for a non-archetype primary attribute.

[MijRai]

Except Intuition is used for Judging Intentions, which is a pretty important thing for a Face to do.

[Dinendae]

Except Intuition is used for Judging Intentions, which is a pretty important thing for a Face to do.

Except that it's one of those things that depends on the table. Apparently at both of your tables it's become super important. The tables I've played at since the start of third edition? Not so much. I can count on one hand the times I've actually had to use it as a Face. It's not that important in my experience.

*I'll edit this in, instead of making another post:*

In the opinion of you both, judging intentions is important. Fair enough, I don't play at your table, so I don't know why your GM is having you roll it so much. However judge intentions is an attribute check, not a skill; if it was a skill, then yeah, I would consider it something a Face needed to put some skill points in, but it's not a skill. Given that at your tables it's important to use judge intentions, I have to ask: Just what the hell is the rest of your party doing leaving these checks solely on the shoulders of the Face? Depending on tradition of course, your Mage should have a fairly high Int attribute, as should your Decker. Why aren't they judging intentions? Even your combat types should have a few points in Int; why aren't they rolling as well.

Is your GM making only your Face roll? Outside of situations where the Face would be talking to the NPC by themselves (which shouldn't happen, but sometimes can), everyone present should have an opportunity to roll. It seems kind of silly to me that the Face should be expected to pump up his Int, but no one else on the team can be bothered to do so? Including those archetypes that actually use it for their core skills? Again, why is a Troll having an Int of 3 (which is either nearly max or above average, depending on the subspecies) somehow bad? The "judge intentions and perception are important" lines aren't really answering that.

[Sendaz]

Is your GM making only your Face roll? Outside of situations where the Face would be talking to the NPC by themselves (which shouldn't happen, but sometimes can), everyone present should have an opportunity to roll. It seems kind of silly to me that the Face should be expected to pump up his Int, but no one else on the team can be bothered to do so? Including those archetypes that actually use it for their core skills? Again, why is a Troll having an Int of 3 (which is either nearly max or above average, depending on the subspecies) somehow bad? The "judge intentions and perception are important" lines aren't really answering that.

I imagine the argument may be even if the whole team is at the table, the others can not just shout out to the Face that they spot something hinky with JI.

But this is easily resolved with the team being connected to one another either by having the team conversing wirelessly or a Mindnet if you are worried about the Johnson's decker listening in. 
Even in the novels you see one character talking to the Johnson while bits of AR or messages from his/her team pop up in his own view or earpiece.

And really you should be having someone sitting back a bit/doing overwatch anyway to look at the overall picture and updating everyone so the Face can focus on the main debate.

[Dinendae]

I imagine the argument may be even if the whole team is at the table, the others can not just shout out to the Face that they spot something hinky with JI.

But this is easily resolved with the team being connected to one another either by having the team conversing wirelessly or a Mindnet if you are worried about the Johnson's decker listening in. 
Even in the novels you see one character talking to the Johnson while bits of AR or messages from his/her team pop up in his own view or earpiece.

And really you should be having someone sitting back a bit/doing overwatch anyway to look at the overall picture and updating everyone so the Face can focus on the main debate.

Exactly my point: As dirt cheap as image link and a pair of contacts/glasses are, there is no reason why someone couldn't tell the Face "Hey, Mr. Johnson is lying to us, as usual" via text, or perhaps a subvocal mic and earplugs, which are also cheap. Having someone sit back and provide overwatch does make sense, but what about the others? Overwatch can be provided, and still have people present who can tip off the Face if they catch something wrong. It shouldn't solely be the Face's job to be a (meta)human lie detector.

[Sendaz]

Sorry, did not mean to make it sound like the guy doing Overwatch is the only one chiming in.

I agree the team as a whole should be observing and conversing via microcomms / mindnet because what's going to work?

teeeeeeaaaammmwwwwoooorrrkkk..

[MijRai]

So you never actually try to judge if people are lying or misleading you, Dinendae?  No attempts to figure out why a person does something?  That's the whole point of Judge Intentions, and it is pretty integral to being a Face (more-so than other archetypes). 

And yes, while everyone with the right Attribute spread can do it, they aren't always there to start.  Secondly, it's the Face's job.  His whole role involves the social aspect of a 'run.  If a Face can't judge peoples' intentions, he's not carrying his weight.  This isn't just for talking to Mr. Johnson; when the Face is off doing his own leg-work, or sweet-talking a person, or trying to fast-talk the cops who pulled him over, he should want to know whether or not he succeeded or is being given a wheelbarrow of bull, no? 

[Whiskeyjack]

And can be bought later if they want to, or they can just increase the attribute via karma if they want to buy other ware. That still doesn't change the fact that a starting Int score of three is good for a non-archetype primary attribute.

I'm not going to agree with this, because being able to dodge and try to go first should be a primary thing for pretty much everyone.

[Dinendae]

So you never actually try to judge if people are lying or misleading you, Dinendae?  No attempts to figure out why a person does something?  That's the whole point of Judge Intentions, and it is pretty integral to being a Face (more-so than other archetypes). 

And yes, while everyone with the right Attribute spread can do it, they aren't always there to start.  Secondly, it's the Face's job.  His whole role involves the social aspect of a 'run.  If a Face can't judge peoples' intentions, he's not carrying his weight.  This isn't just for talking to Mr. Johnson; when the Face is off doing his own leg-work, or sweet-talking a person, or trying to fast-talk the cops who pulled him over, he should want to know whether or not he succeeded or is being given a wheelbarrow of bull, no?

• I don't go into the game thinking my character is stupid: They live in a dystopian world, and that fact should have been hammered into them from childhood. When playing a Face, I go in assuming that everyone they interact with is going to try and screw them over, especially the Johnsons and Fixers. We've had plenty of Jackpoint fluff where they've brought in Johnsons and Fixers who have said "Yeah, we try to screw you over as much as we can get away with." So my Face, not being an idiot, walks into the meet knowing that the Fixer or Johnson is going to try and screw the team over, even if it's simply by not paying as much as they could. Why would I roll to judge intentions on something I know is automatically going to happen anyway? My Face's motto is always "Never trust, always verify." That verification is not done with the Johnson, as they're going to be lying to you anyway.
• In accordance with above, I go into the meeting knowing the person is going to lie about motivations, who they actually work for (if they even mention an employer), and why they want said run done. Figuring that stuff out is part of the post-meet legwork (although your Decker can start looking into that during a meet), which everyone should have a chance to help out in at one time or another (even your Street Sam should have some contacts they might be able to try to get some information from).
• At the end of the run, my Face automatically plans that things will go South. As such the Face is never left alone to deal with the NPC we did the run for; at a bare minimum we have both a combat and magic type there. Now you may not always be able to do that (I allowed for that possibility in a previous post) but it has never been an issue for any of the groups I've been in. We go into the meet expecting an ambush, and prepare accordingly. When we're as positive as we can be that the NPC isn't going to screw us over, we go into the meet expecting an ambush, and prepare accordingly. Paranoia is an essential survival skill in the 6th world.
• [/size]Remember the sheep? More specifically the lesson Bull told Dev/grrl? It's not your place to worry about what's going on, other than make sure your team isn't going to get hosed over by being a disposable (and disposed of) decoy team or that the Johnson isn't going to have your team terminated at the end of the run. Like Bull told Dev, you're a professional, it's not your job to dig into why the Johnson wants X done, or Y person extricated, or Z item taken. Again, it's a dystopian world; bad things happen, and you're one of the people who makes the bad things happen. Don't like the job that was presented? Walk away. However it's not your business to know why prototype A, along with any files on it, needs to be extracted from Megacorp B. Forget about the sheep. It's not your business to know about the sheep, unless the Johnson makes it your business.
• [/size]Going along with the previous point, and to paraphrase someone from a different I.P.: "We do the job, we get paid." You're supposed to be an anonymous, deniable asset; it's not your job to dig into the motivations of the Megacorp (or whoever the Johnson works for). You can protect yourself from being betrayed, and should, but that information should be gleaned from the legwork section of the run, which generally comes after the meet. You can also help protect against betrayal be going into the final meet/exchange expecting to be betrayed; your Street Sam should be prepared for combat (and right there with the Face, to provide security for them), Deckers and Riggers should already be in over-watch, your Mage should have a summoned spirit to help (doesn't need to be bound), and often should also be with the Face as well (not only to discourage them from throwing an AoE spell on the bad guys (and thus hitting the Face), but also to help reassure the Johnson that you're not intending to double-cross them as well).
• [/size]Again, judging intentions is not the Face's job; it is everyone's job.
• [/size]Neither of you have still answered the question I've asked: "Why is a starting Int score of 3 bad?" Judge Intentions is an Int + Cha test; in the case of the sample Fomorian I put up, that would have the player rolling 8 dice for the test, 14 dice if they spend a point of their 6(!) edge (which would also let them ignore limits, as well as re-roll any 6s). How is that somehow "bad" for a starting character? What the hell game are you playing?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Dinendae
Points for Firefly reference. And as for what kind of game some people are playing? The kind of games where a dice pool of 8 for a test with two attributes is low, would be my guess. To some, if you're not rolling at least 12 dice on every test you make you're setting yourself up for failure. Not pointing any fingers, it's a valid playstyle, but you know who you are.

[Dinendae]

And can be bought later if they want to, or they can just increase the attribute via karma if they want to buy other ware. That still doesn't change the fact that a starting Int score of three is good for a non-archetype primary attribute.

I'm not going to agree with this, because being able to dodge and try to go first should be a primary thing for pretty much everyone.

I've dodged just fine on characters with Int scores of 2, and there are plenty of options for boosting initiative; the Troll I briefly outlined earlier in the thread starts with 50,000 nuyen, and can get another 40,000 nuyen by trading in 20 points of karma during character creation. For 90,000 nuyen you can get your fake SIN rating 4, some licenses, a rating 6 commlink, Face appropriate armor, and a weapon (with decent mods and ammo), and still be able to afford some kind of initiative boosting ware. You can then use drugs if you want that initiative bonus even higher. Later on, you can upgrade the ware to get a higher bonus. Not everybody can start the game with combat archetype-level reflexes. It falls under that "Everything has a price" catchphrase that permeates this edition.

[Dinendae]

Dinendae
Points for Firefly reference. And as for what kind of game some people are playing? The kind of games where a dice pool of 8 for a test with two attributes is low, would be my guess. To some, if you're not rolling at least 12 dice on every test you make you're setting yourself up for failure. Not pointing any fingers, it's a valid playstyle, but you know who you are.

Mal is my guiding star when it comes to how my characters behave in Shadowrun, generally speaking.     
They can do whatever they want in their games, and I truly don't care what their playstyle is (to each their own, and all that) but coming into a thread and telling others that a perfectly viable character concept is somehow bad because it doesn't fit in with how they play falls into that "You're playing the game wrong" mentality we've seen on the forums here. They'd probably have a heart attack if they saw the Decker/Rigger character I've played in Missions games who has a 13 on one class skill, and 10's or less on the other skills!

[MijRai]

1.  It pays to know what they're lying about.  Knowing if they're lying about who you'll be messing with as opposed to who is hiring you is quite useful. 

2.  It helps you with post meet leg-work too, if that's your bag. 

3.  So what if you're never alone with Mr. Johnson?  That's irrelevant to the importance of a Face's capacity to spot tells and other cues.  The meet where you get hired is the least of the concerns there.  You automatically assume he's lying, go with it.  Judge Intentions is good to tell if someone bought your story elsewhere, or figure out if your contact is keeping something from you. 

4.  Irrelevant. 

5.  Not only irrelevant, but contradictory with your post-meet leg-work.  Motivations tell you the why of the job, which tells you how things are going. 

6.  Everyone should do it, but it is a part of the Face's role.  The entire purpose of the Face is to deal with people.  Judging Intentions is a part of it.  Would you say a customer service representative is good at their job if they can't tell when someone is unhappy with a product?  Yeah, everyone should be able to do it, but a Face should be able to do it well.

7.  Well, if you actually read what Whiskey is saying, Intuition has far more value than just Judge Intentions (or Initiative).  Evasion, Perception, Knowledges; Intuition affects a lot of important things, especially for a Face who probably isn't investing so much into combat attributes.  And you can't turn over 10 karma into Nuyen.  Cut that number down to 70,000. 

To note; you are far too focused on the pre and post-run meetings.  That is only a small section of the game. 

I'm not acknowledging the comments on 'playing wrong' beyond saying they're wrong (the comments, to be clear).