[jonathanc]

oh that's easy, he's banned magic using characters as a whole.  No adept's allowed

This sounds like a GM who is overwhelmed by the system and is concerned about players becoming so powerful that the game isn't challenging. This is pretty common if you're coming to Shadowrun from D&D/Pathfinder, where it is expected that a "good" encounter should result in everyone having lost about half of their HP, and/or expended a good portion of their resources (spell slots, etc.)

Shadowrun isn't built for that, because you're never more than about 12 or so boxes of damage from death and/or a seriously bad time. It doesn't help that the NPC stats that most GMs are working with are terribly underpowered and don't take advantage of even the simplest things that players would be taking advantage of (smartlinks, PPP armor, form-fitting body armor, etc.)

Umaro's archetypes are pretty well optimized, so I think you may have spooked him by showing up with dice pools larger than he's used to seeing. I think you should have a talk with this GM about what's going on here, because going back and forth on the rules is just going to turn him into an asshole GM, and you into a rules lawyer. It doesn't sound like you went with this character so you could steamroll over his adventures; you just want to have fun. Once he understand that, trusts you, and learns how to build appropriate challenges, you guys will be on the same page.

By the way, I'm curious: what do the other players in the game think of all of this? Are they optimized to a similar degree as you, or would you say you're considerably more competent, dice-pool wise?

[Ajax]

Shadowrun is a complex game, even the core rulebook acknowledges the "three worlds" problem that can occur due to Matrix, Astral, and "meatspace" activity all happening at the same time.  Add in VR versus AR, astral perception versus astral presence verus astral manifestation, remote drones versus Command drones versus rigged drones, and plain old boots on the ground... that is a lot of activity to keep track of, even before you add in trying to remember how all of these systems work.

I think a group starting out in Shadowrun is smart to limit player options.  Run a campign where everyone is operating 90% of the time in the "real world." Then ramp up the amount of decking hacking that needs to go down in the Matrix after a few sessions (The kidnapping ring is part of a larger operation!? Let's go raid their central server!).  Then the GM can in toss some Magician enemies to help him learn the system (The kidnappers are evil wizards!!!111!one). With that introductory arc over, increase the build options available to players for Act II.

Not unlike going from Dungeons & Dragons with just the PHB, to Dungeons & Dragons with splatbooks. Slow and steady keeps the GM sane. Sane GMs are less likely to wonder what the stats are on a Thor Shot.

[Noctem]

I completely agree with you that the GM is overwhelmed by the complexity of the game.  You are also correct that we are a group of players coming from a long time 4th edition dnd group where the combat is a lot of up and down HP wise.  I think the GM is also convinced that shadowrun is a lot more RP focused than other tabletops.  In fact he's made it clear that he doesn't believe combat will be a factor in most of his sessions unless the group goes for combat.  Now if that means that combat can be worked around of and unless we actively wish to have combat it won't happen that's one thing.  But if he means to make me believe that combat should never happen and that all the combat mechanics / guns / armor and what not are just for show in this game, then he's not seeing what I'm seeing.

I absolutely understand that the combat in shadowrun is in no way like the combat from 4th edition dnd.  Losing hit boxes is a big deal which is why there's so many ways to protect yourself from losing them.  Permanent loss of an arm or hand etc.. 

As for the other players, the GM designed the face character and went for more of a fun rp build than actual face.  But since the player has no intentions of learning the mechanics and optimizing within them there should be no problem there.  It's more of a fun group activity for that player.

The hacker is took the time to read the core book from start to finish.  And his character reflects that.  He has a solid understanding of the rules and factored in his idea into the character.  So it's an optimized build within those personal guide lines for him.  He's been doing very well so far in the sessions and has been owning anything hacker related.  The GM has not had any problems with this so far and relies on that player for all the hacking rules.

The tank decided not to play because it's too complicated and she didn't want to get into it.

The merc is so far a no show.  We have someone else who might be coming in who is a shadowrun vet from what the GM has told us. 

And I have been RPing my character as a sort of body guard for the Face character and have been going to meetings and such.  I have not used my weapons at all and have instead been solidifying the characters relationships.  Next session we are probably going to have combat, but I'm not actively seeking it.

[Ajax]

Shadowrun can be a lot of different things to each of its players; a roleplaying heavy, combat light game is a very common style of play.

[Noctem]

oh yeah combat light is fine, but no combat ?  The way the GM talks about the game it's like combat doesn't exist, at least when he's talking to me lmao..  Maybe i should just find a different GM.

[Ajax]

Has he looked at the content of any of these books?   You do not get stats for 200+ firearms in a game that eschews combat!

But in all seriousness, my ideal level of combat in game of Shadowrun is more akin to Patriot Games or Casino Royale than it is to Equilibrium or Aliens. There are other schools of thought, naturally.  You GM might be shooting more for Blade Runner.

[jonathanc]

oh yeah combat light is fine, but no combat ?  The way the GM talks about the game it's like combat doesn't exist, at least when he's talking to me lmao..  Maybe i should just find a different GM.

You may need to consider this. Is the GM a long-time friend of your's? I still think a conversation about what you're looking for in a game would go a long way. It sounds kinda new-agey ("lets talk about our feelings, as gamers..."), but IMO it's a much more effective technique than trying to force the issue by proxy with rules arguments.

If you wanted to be more subtle about it, offer to run a one-shot of the game to give the GM a chance to be a player; lead by example, show him the kind of game you'd *LIKE* to be playing in, and maybe he'll learn something. And hey, maybe going through the process of GMing the game will give you some insight into where he's coming from as well.

[Ajax]

In the sadly out-of-print 7th Sea RPG players were given 100 Points to build their Heroes. Then they were given "The Other 100 Points" and asked to distribute these 100 points between five different campaign themes, according to preference.  I've used this system very, very successful in games as diverse as Dungeons & Dragons, Mutants and Masterminds, and even Call of Cththlu. (Hell, I've even used it to help pick the next game we'd play!) GMs should feel free to adjust the categories, but are best always allowing at least four or five categories.

Here is what a sample group's spread might look like for a game of Shadowrun, if I was behind the screen:

Current Campaign Interest

Interest	Alice	Bob	Chris	Dawn	Eric	Frank	Mean	Variance
Intrigue	35	25	30	25	20	20	26	34
Action	30	25	50	25	25	30	31	94
Romance	15	25	5	10	25	25	17.5	78
Exploration	10	25	10	30	10	20	17.5	78
Military	10	0	5	10	20	5	8	47

At first glance, it looks like there is a marked preference for Action, but it's largely because of the very high score it received from Chris.  If we look at the variance, though, we see that it's actually with Intrigue that we get the most agreement (lowest variance and second highest mean) and on Military (lowest mean, second lowest variance.)  Romance and Exploration are practically indistinguishable in terms of interest from the group: middling and scattered.

So Intrigue and Action are probably equally fair bets for the GM to build his campaign around, followed by Romance and Exploration. Lagging far, far behind, is any interest in Military related adventures.

If none of these players had ever played much Shadowrun, it would behoove the GM to have them go through the "The Other 100 Points" exercise before they start to design characters, that way he can steer them towards concepts that fit their individual interest (For example, Chris will probably prefer a Street Sam or Adept to a Face; Alice might really enjoy a Face or a Hacker.)

[Blue_Lion]

The DM has banned magic users completely stating they are too complicated.  So no awakened unfortunately.  I'll go over the build with the DM and explain to him step by step how the character works and that I am not at a disadvantage on the "street" as he put it.  He also stated that he was interested in finding out how an implant filled character would do on the "streets".  sigh.  Could you explain to me how detection of bioware / cyberware would work just so that I can explain it to him should the need arise.  I don't really feel like dealing with the DM just saying that via a visual perception roll the security guard knows I have a Suprathyroid gland and is now calling for backup you know ? lol.

sounds like he wants to turn it into just cyberpunk. My recomondaiton is it sounds like you will not do well with the GM look for another.

[Noctem]

Hey all

So a bit of an update, we now have played our second session and it was quite fun.  I used my infiltration to enter the house and disable the two kidnappers using the hacker to turn off the lights inside the house and then getting a surprise initiative pass to down both.  I made sure to have the rules book open at the right pages for each step.  Anyway it was fine.  The GM asked questions which I immediately answered using the book to show him I was right.  It might not sound amazing, but it was smooth and I was able to do what I wanted without the GM thinking up weird rules.

I do have a few questions for the community though, the build uses micro sensors to add layers of senses to the character.  If I wear the contacts, wear the glasses, have the micro sensors turned on :  Is everything on and working at all times ?  As in do I have to decide to use the Radio Signal Scanner for example or does it automatically work and just feed me the information ?  I know I have to make tests for specific tasks as I will describe below, but I am curious to know if it does anything else or if I only use it during the tests.  In the description it mentions:

"Treat the scanner as if it were a Sniffer program (p. 234) equal to its rating; see p. 229 for rules on detecting and intercepting wireless signals."

Now on page 229 it says that I can use electronic warfare+the rating of the program or in this case the rating of the Radio Signal Scanner that I am using correct ?  This is the way we did it at the table yesterday.  Now of course this character is not amazing at hacking, so I am guessing that is why the build gets a rating 6 to compensate.  I managed to get 6 dice total (my logic being 2 and defaulting + rating of 6 gave me 6).  Is this accurate ? 

The way I used it during my infiltration of the house was to roll the 6 dice, I got 2 successes which let me pinpoint where the 2 men were in the house and take them out.  The GM debated a bit on the point of if I would be able to pinpoint them the way I did, but it clearly states that you can pinpoint in the description of the item itself.  So he agreed that would be how it worked.  So I would like to make sure we understood it correctly.

I also understand that with it I can intercept traffic via hacking+rating like a normal sniffer program.  I haven't used that function yet but it could be interesting.  The hacker of the group managed to help me and the GM and fill in the blanks when it came to how a sniffer program worked.

As far as changing GM's I think this is going to be more of a learning curve for everyone.  The event that happened last week, I believe anyway, was just a manifestation of the frustration of learning a new system when you're used to knowing everything there is to know about one you are using.  He stated that a skinlink could not be used to communicate with whatever it is involved with and instead was just for information, as if it did nothing and was just some added feature.  I didn't even need to say anything to that since the guy playing the hacker jumped on it.  I guess the hacker likes his skinlink ?  However the point I'm trying to make is just that the GM, instead of getting defensive, just said that he must have confused something with it and we just kept on playing.  So we're all learning how to work together

[UmaroVI]

On the Radio Signal Scanner:

Part of your commlink's job is to deal with that information and feed it into your Image Link - you should probably have Image Link on something like your glasses/goggles/contacts/etc. This is part of it belonging to a PAN. In-universe, the idea is that you have a sort of GUI set up in AR, so you see, say, radio signals overlaid onto your vision.

You should actually have had less dice than that. The roll is normally EW+Sniffer, Logic isn't involved, so you'd roll 5 dice defaulting.

You can definitely use it to figure out where people are. I don't think you can use it to target attacks (but you can use it to get within range of another sense, for example).

One thing to note is that it's easy for hackers to do stuff like that remotely. You could, for example, give your hacker access to your Radio Signal Scanner and let them then use their EW skill (which is likely better than yours) to find people for you.

[Noctem]

thanks for the post Umaro   That's a great idea to let the hacker have access to my radio signal so he can do the rolls for me since his dice pool would be much bigger.  That's an awesome way to create teamwork and I'm sure the hacker will feel very involved next time i decide to make use of it ^_^

[Noctem]

I have a question for Umaro or anyone willing to answer.  The core build for the "Ghost" that Umaro has posted uses a CMT Clip and Meta Link for commlinks.  Just wondering but wouldn't it be better to get something potent ?  And also, the Vector Xim operating system has pretty low stats as well.  Am I missing something ? 

The reason why I am wondering is because of the last mission we did.  We completed it and got about 8-10 karma each and 23,000 $.  The DM was very impressed with us hehe...  Anyway we worked for it and earned the reward I assure you.  But anyway I came up with the questions based on how the hacker managed to hack into the commlinks of the guards and other things and it just seemed like I should have better protection in that department.  Any suggestions ?

[All4BigGuns]

I have a question for Umaro or anyone willing to answer.  The core build for the "Ghost" that Umaro has posted uses a CMT Clip and Meta Link for commlinks.  Just wondering but wouldn't it be better to get something potent ?  And also, the Vector Xim operating system has pretty low stats as well.  Am I missing something ? 

The reason why I am wondering is because of the last mission we did.  We completed it and got about 8-10 karma each and 23,000 $.  The DM was very impressed with us hehe...  Anyway we worked for it and earned the reward I assure you.  But anyway I came up with the questions based on how the hacker managed to hack into the commlinks of the guards and other things and it just seemed like I should have better protection in that department.  Any suggestions ?

The Meta Link/Vector Xim would likely be the one you want to use to broadcast fake SIN and whatnot while keeping your important stuff on the other one with wifi turned off and everything skinlinked. Of course, this is if your GM acts like so many people on here and continues with the stuff of ruling that every implant you have can be hacked to FUBAR you into next century.

[Noctem]

haha.  I believe he would be one of those people, yep.  I was aware of the skinlink's amazing power to get around having to use wifi for everything.  That makes sense, keep the wifi turned off so that it can't access the matrix or receive outside connections that aren't directly connected to it ( via a datajack for example ) or skinlink.  That should solve the problem quite effectively.  However it does limit certain options.  By doing that, it also stops the hacker from using my radio signal scanner for example.  But anyway that's something that we can work with.

Thanks a lot for your quick reply !