[mistersuckerfish]

Hey all,

Gonna be running a game sometime in the future, & wanted the group to start off as a youth street gang (similar to Tetuso's gang in Akira).  Obviously this will be VERY low powered.  Is the suggested 300 for street-level games still a bit high for what I have in mind?  It seems that way to me.  I appreciate the help, & apologize of this has been answered before.

Thank You

[Makki]

you need at least 160 BP to make an average metahuman being, e.g. human with all 3s. So 320BP should be your bare minimum, because there is really no reason, why your gangers should be crippled compared to the rest of the world. Unless with youth you mean kids, which haven't grown up yet..

[All4BigGuns]

I wouldn't advise lowering points at all, but in my opinion, such games are only fun for the GM. It would be better to just lower availability limit and/or possibly resources (I would still run like hell from the game personally though).

[Henzington]

I actually did a game where one of the party was a prime runner 400bp didnt count resources or contacts.  He just had amnesia and deep cover.  His team was supporting the group while his prerecorded messages gave out the missions.  It was quite funny when they wiped out his team and killed his fixer ruining his whole scheme.

[Medicineman]

Hey all,

Gonna be running a game sometime in the future, & wanted the group to start off as a youth street gang (similar to Tetuso's gang in Akira).  Obviously this will be VERY low powered.  Is the suggested 300 for street-level games still a bit high for what I have in mind?  It seems that way to me.  I appreciate the help, & apologize of this has been answered before.

Thank You

Don't !!!
Instead of "bonzaiing" the Chars You should rather talk with the Players and ask them to create Chars that are Suitible for Your kind of Low Style campaign. IF You have to cut down sth. You could lower the Resources(maybe only 1000 ¥ per Point ) or lower the Availiability (Maybe to 8 f.E.) But Don't (DON'T !) Lower the BP. You might end up with even more Min/Maxed Chars because the Players have to cut points for Fluff Skills that they can't afford anymore.
OK ,If You want to run a Campaign for Kids than 350 BP BP might be Ok

Hogh !
Medicineman

[mistersuckerfish]

Okey dokey then.  Thanks for all the input guys!  Glad I asked before I ran.

[Herr Novak]

Even with 400 BPs characters often tend to be not well rounded like former military hackers who don't know which end of the assault rifle should point toward the enemy, wizgangers with no melee skill or bouncer trolls without intimidation. And all of them lack athletics and etiquette, and none of them has a car or the skill to use one. If you lower attribute- and skillmaximums instead of BPs your players can skill those "fluff"-skills without worrying about karma efficiency. If you lower BP you worsen the above mentioned problem. Lower the maximum BPs available for ressources and the maximum availability and maybe don't allow certain qualities. Also, Karma-Gen might be an option for you, I think with 600 KP you should be able to come up with well rounded ganger characters. My experience is that karma generated chars are more likely to have those fluffy side skills because you don't waste potential if you take Blades 1 instead of raising Automatics from 5 to 6.

Of course you cal also talk to your players how you want their characters to be and let them go. If you think their chars come up to high powered for your intended campaign talk to them again until you are bot happy. Talking skills are valueable in real life too! Another option would be: let the players tell you a character concept and you make up thge stats. So every char matrches your intentions and they are of equal power level. Just be sure that your players have fun playing that chars.

[Crash_00]

If you're dead set on going with restrictions (which isn't really a bad thing imo), don't hose the resources the players have, just change where they can place it. For instance, if you want characters with Street gear, limit them to 5 or 10 BP on gear. If you want to place a cap on what they can start with, drop availability down to 8. If you want them to start with lower skills on average, put more restrictions on what skills they can have at certain ranks for creation.

Many players will run like hell from the game. Depending on why you're placing restrictions it can be warranted or not. Usually it's players that have been picked on by a bad GM being a bad GM too much, and are gun shy any time they see something that will "help the GM win" again. I've never understood that concept, since if the GM wants to play to win, the GM will play to win, power levels don't stop that. I've seen three good reasons for restrictions over several systems:
1.) Specific Campaign Concept: The campaign concept just calls for certain things to not be available that normally are at creation. The gang concept is a wonderful example of this. Gangers are not known for their military hardware unless we're talking large sub-AA status gangs like the ancients for example. No your punk ganger does not have milspec armor and an ogre's hammer starting out.

2.) Primer: Starting with less dice can really help new players understand the game better. When you only have a few dice coming from each source, it's easier to understand where each bit is coming from. 15 dice with another 7 dice of modifiers can be quickly overwhelming (especially if it's a player new to RPGs entirely), 3 dice from agility, 3 dice from pistols and 2 dice from smartlink is much easier to understand. This can be good for a mini-campaign, or as a start for a campaign following the next reason.

3.) Growth: For a long campaign where the goal is to see a lot of character growth, a world class sniper remaining....an exactly just as good world class sniper over five years of play (in game obviously) doesn't really show any growth in that aspect. Starting low and letting the characters grow to Prime runner status is an experience that most roleplayers will enjoy if given the chance. Of course, it really sucks to pour the energy into this and then, three months later, have the game die. This reason usually works best for a campaign that is meant to end with the big score. For years afterward, your players will reminisce about going from a status just above street ganger to pulling off the double presidential candidate assassination and making enough to retire...on a luxury cruiser...in paradise.

A few words of advice. I strongly recommend much caution when working with "weaker" characters. You really have to pay attention to what you throw them against. Professional Rating 1 and 2 goons can be a challenge in these kinds of games if they use any sort of advanced tactics.

On a similar note, for lower resource games, I highly suggest using the karma generation system (the german version that is supposed to be in the newest Runner's Companion). It allows for much more freedom in spending points.

[All4BigGuns]

On a similar note, for lower resource games, I highly suggest using the karma generation system (the german version that is supposed to be in the newest Runner's Companion). It allows for much more freedom in spending points.

While I still despise karma generation--wouldn't mind quite as much if it weren't for the 'special attribute counts toward attribute spending limits' and the lack of free knowledge skill points, I will confirm that the alterations are in the most recent Runner's Companion (the one with the new cover). Just picked up the pdf of it and the new Augmentation.

(Note on Dislike- I also prefer characters that are actually capable rather than "Mr. Average Man". Just like that I don't enjoy characters having to 'scrape by' on money because I have to IRL, I want a capable character because I am average at best.)

[Mason]

I love karmagen. Every time I see a karma generation character in my home games, they tend to have 1 major specialty just as high as it would have been in BP, coupled with a broader range of miscellaneous skills, alongside usually 2 other specialties of a lesser rank. Both systems, under my modifications, seem to balance out to equivalent characters almost always, so I let players use either one. Of course, I use a lot of home brewed rules that make all characters in my games more capable than standard generation of either method, like free contact or knowledge points, extra nuyen, extra points based on character age for knowledges, choosing a starting rep based on duration of running beforehand, and so on.

Of course, I tend to have characters like a Face/Sniper, a Mystic Adept Swordsman/Utility mage, a shotgun and taser toting somewhat insane ex-preacher/mage with first aid skills, a hyperactive dwarf street sam addicted to novacoke and rating 6 hydraulic jacks who has Compulsion: Braggart....

You get the idea.

[Crash_00]

Average in SR though for a professional is a dicepool of 6 before bonuses for ware/gear. The archetypes even manage to scrape up around 9 dice in most things. Of course that's part of the issue. The difference between an average professional and an average novice is less than one hit, meaning professional training didn't do them that much good.

[All4BigGuns]

Average in SR though for a professional is a dicepool of 6 before bonuses for ware/gear. The archetypes even manage to scrape up around 9 dice in most things. Of course that's part of the issue. The difference between an average professional and an average novice is less than one hit, meaning professional training didn't do them that much good.

Perhaps average for standard people. Average for a runner should be 12 to 15 dice in my opinion.

[Mason]

Average in SR though for a professional is a dicepool of 6 before bonuses for ware/gear. The archetypes even manage to scrape up around 9 dice in most things. Of course that's part of the issue. The difference between an average professional and an average novice is less than one hit, meaning professional training didn't do them that much good.

Professional is skill 4. Average at the job is skill 3. Your average trained guy has 6 dice. A pro has 8 dice. Experts have 10. The best of the best have 12. Now add misc. bonuses and ware boosts. See skill chapter SR4 if needing verification, tables lay it out pretty well.

[Crash_00]

Uhm...the table totally lays it out as 3 for Professional (0=untrained, 1=beginner, 2=novice, 3=professional, 4=veteran, 5=expert, 6=elite, 7=Legen...wait for it...dary).

Attributes are another matter (you have to add your metatype's modifiers to get an accurate result) and certain fields should have different standards, but for a basic (1=weak, 2=undeveloped, 3=typical, 4=improved, 5=superior, 6=maximum potential). Maximum potential should be relatively rare, and a 5 should be someone you'd definitely remember.

From the archetypes, it seems the planned average was around 9-12 which is still a great deal above your typical guy. Of course with power creep that has kicked in, you can accidentally hit your head on 15-18 without trying in some skills.

[Glyph]

A 3 is professional rating, in that it is the rating of someone who has just started out making a living at doing it.  It is a regular beat cop, security guard, military grunt, college athlete, go-ganger, or someone with an Associate's degree.

It is not the average for every NPC.  Someone with a Master's degree, an Ancients go-ganger, someone on a SWAT team - they will have skills of 5.  Shadowrunners will tend to be around the 5-6 mark in their specialties.  Even the archetypes, which are far from optimized, bear this out - there are a lot of them with 5's, and the ones that don't have 5's are generally the ones with a wider spread of skills and/or skill groups.

On Attributes, remember that, just like skills, it is a 7 that is truly maximum potential (before adding SURGE and geneware, of course).

What really makes shadowrunners pull out of the pack, though, are the dice pool bonuses - some from boosting their Attributes, some from boosting their skills, and some from tech or 'ware that directly boosts the dice pool.  There has been a bit of power creep, but dice pools in the 15-18 range are fairly easy to get, at least for some skills, even with the basic book.


Now, for a low-powered campaign - something like gang kids, who are supposed to be less powerful - the best way is to limit Availability, Magic rating (otherwise everyone will just be a mage or an adept), starting skill ratings, and resources.  Let them pour their points into having a wider spread of skills and more contacts, instead.  Dice pools (the main measure of character power) will be lower because skills will be lower and those pervasive dice pool modifiers will be less common.