[FastJack]

Why should a proficient negotiator be a pacifist?  If anything, I'd argue that it actually hurts you in many cases.  Violence is just one of many ways of resolving interpersonal conflict, and taking the option off the table only serves to tie your hands.

It's been my experience that being ready, willing, and able to kill everyone you're negotiating with can come in very handy, especially when dealing with bullies, thugs, and gangers.  You have to dial it down, or shut that off completely with some people, but I'd never give up being able to turn it back on.

Oh, and I love gaming horror stories.  What's this pacifist adept trainwreck tale of woe?

Well, I didn't go with the 10 point quality of total pacifism, but the 5 point of "I'll defend myself" is pretty good. It's mostly a way of saying your character still has morals even though working in the criminal shadows.

[Caine Hazen]

But for missions you can just say to the player we don't want to play with that character any more.  You are doing more harm than good.   If you know you are going to play with the same people it may be a good idea to do that.  I hope things get better for you.

I take Lynx on the road to the Cons.  Its going to just be part of that whole experience.  Fortunately we have a local GM who can fill in the gaps (Iusually only get to play 3-5 Missions all con season, and got none in this year )  Unfortunately for us, the pornomancer is in the local "fill-in" group for me, but on the plus side, my drones may malfunction into her back sometime (and yes, she is the 10 point pacifist...)

I think however, whereas te "regular" Missions should have a bit of a cap, that the "prime" missions should give leeway to much crazier attempts at negotiation.  Making a good focused face a better asset to have (but I'll still shot cheezemonkey's in the back )

[KarmaInferno]

Why should a proficient negotiator be a pacifist?  If anything, I'd argue that it actually hurts you in many cases.  Violence is just one of many ways of resolving interpersonal conflict, and taking the option off the table only serves to tie your hands.

Yeah, my Face counts "multiple machineguns firing full auto" as a negotiating tactic. And rolls 16 dice to hit, too...

"I Wish for many guns, floating around me, controlled by murder thoughts." - Yeah, she does that.





-karma

[TranKirsaKali]

But for missions you can just say to the player we don't want to play with that character any more.  You are doing more harm than good.   If you know you are going to play with the same people it may be a good idea to do that.  I hope things get better for you.

I take Lynx on the road to the Cons.  Its going to just be part of that whole experience.  Fortunately we have a local GM who can fill in the gaps (Iusually only get to play 3-5 Missions all con season, and got none in this year )  Unfortunately for us, the pornomancer is in the local "fill-in" group for me, but on the plus side, my drones may malfunction into her back sometime (and yes, she is the 10 point pacifist...)

I think however, whereas te "regular" Missions should have a bit of a cap, that the "prime" missions should give leeway to much crazier attempts at negotiation.  Making a good focused face a better asset to have (but I'll still shot cheezemonkey's in the back )

I am trying to think of a way to help you in this situation.  Give me some time and some energy and I may be able to come up with a suggestion that will allow her to play her character with out irritating the rest of you.  But the only thing I can think of at this time is to ask her to just negotiate the pay for the job and have her pick up some hacking skills so she can get you pay data and more information with out necessarily going on the physical part of the run.   

[Bull]

It's not the character, so much as it's the player. (I'm in the same group with Caine, playing my Street Sammy Rush).

And I expect that Prime Missions will be a whole lot crazier.  And a whole mot more dangerous.

[Deacon]

The problem I have is, when you get a new player to Missions, and he's playing a Face, and he's told that he's capped in the one field he decided to specialize in... it's not conducive to making him feel like he's contributing, ka? He might think 'Missions hates Faces, so I might as well have played a samurai'.

But while the Johnson might only have $50, remember that often he's taking his own pay out of that $50.  He might start the group at $25, and you negotiate him up to $75... but he's not going to take a cut in pay.  He might not get that whole $25 he was counting on to pad his retirement account, but he's going to at least take the $10 that he was promised for doing this for the Corp.  

A solution?  I wouldn't list a cap.  Caps are stupid, IMO; if a character has managed to exceed common-sense limits in one field, he should reap the rewards he's planned for himself.  He'll show deficiency somewhere else, and that's the beauty of the whole system.  When combat starts and all the Face can provide is a couple of badly-aimed shots in the general direction of the opposition, he's finding out what exceeding those common-sense limits in one field is doing to him.  Maybe next character he'll keep things in perspective.

Instead of a cap, I'd allow extra successes to purchase assets for the mission and beyond.  Need a skilled insertion?  Johnson calls up the corporate VTOL fleet.   Living on the low side?  Johnson has access to a corporate condo you can stay in for a few months.  Need some cyberware installed?  Johnson can get you into that sweet Beta clinic the corporation owns.  This way the Johnson isn't out the pay, but is still compensating the 'runners for the job.

-Deacon

[Bull]

Again...  two things..

1)  Not listing a cap is suicidal to game balance, since I've seen a face at a con get something like 17 net hits.

2)  The baseline payments are intended to be decent paydays.  We balance these things so that groups without Face characters don't get screwed.

3)  Extra stuff is outside the scope of Missions.  The more you add, the more complicated it gets, and the more problematic it becomes.

4)  Don;t over specialize.  Again, 5 net hits means, on average, you were throwing 15 more dice than the Johnson.  Yes, exceptions happen.  But still.  5 Net hits is a freaking lot of net hits.  If this isn;t enough for you, then obviously the Johnsons aren't good enough at their job.  Rating 10 Emotitoys, Tailored Pheremones, a social adept, and hey, I can start giving the Johnsons street cred scores as well, if necessary.

5)  If 5 net hits aren't enough pay for you.  Walk away from the run.  <shrug>

6)  Likewise, shadowrunners are disposable assets.  If you demand too much, Mr. Johnson can always walk away as well.  The city is full of shadowrunners eager to take on jobs.  

7)  the other option is I can not limit net hits...  But make the bonus for net hits negligible.  Your pay is 8,000¥, plus 50¥ per net hit.  

8 )  Don't over specialize.  If you find that you're capping your hits every time?  It's time to start putting points in other things.

<shrug>

This is a topic that's been discussed to death, and I'm sorry, but there's not going to be more to it than this.  It won't necessarily always be 5 hits.  Sometimes they will offer additional incentives beyond pure cash.  But not always.

Bull

[Deacon]

One thing I wanted to pull up.

Rating 10 Emotitoys

Rating 10?!?  Arsenal puts the limit at 6, I thought. 

Actually, while those things are useful to a Face, I personally think they're vastly overused (and annoying, from a GM's perspective).  I'd love to see a house rule where they (and emotional sensor software) are treated like the other sensor software: that they replace your social skill dice, they don't add to it.  They'd be very useful to a team without a Face, instead of being the bonus dice every Face uses to trump the Johnson.

And every Johnson worth his salt should be using the same toys the 'runners use.

[Caine Hazen]

I'd love to see a house rule where they (and emotional sensor software) are treated like the other sensor software: that they replace your social skill dice, they don't add to it. 

That technically has some validity to it... being as SR4A was released AFTER Arsenel... now I gotta go read rules...

[Bull]

One thing I wanted to pull up.

Rating 10 Emotitoys

Rating 10?!?  Arsenal puts the limit at 6, I thought. 

Military Grade Emotitoys   I was being a smart-ass here, really :]  The point stands though.

Actually, while those things are useful to a Face, I personally think they're vastly overused (and annoying, from a GM's perspective).  I'd love to see a house rule where they (and emotional sensor software) are treated like the other sensor software: that they replace your social skill dice, they don't add to it.  They'd be very useful to a team without a Face, instead of being the bonus dice every Face uses to trump the Johnson.

And every Johnson worth his salt should be using the same toys the 'runners use.

Either way, the last sentence was my real point.

And Caine and I looked it up...  Emotitoy is technically is Sensor Software, and in SR4A, Sensors replace the Attribute.  So yeah, Emotitoys are useful for low Charisma characters, but not a bonus like they used to, which is nice.   We'll have to make sure GMs and players are aware of that

Bull

[KarmaInferno]

That could be worse balance-wise than allowing the natural attribute, actually.

It's a LOT easier and BP/nuyen cheaper to buy a Rating 6 Camera than it is to buy Rating 6 Charisma.

Oh, hey, look, that Charisma 1 street sam now has 12 + Negotiate Skill dice to throw at the Johnson instead of 7 + skill.

And even my 24 dice social adept rigger* goes to 25 dice.


-karma

*- the funny thing is, the reason for the 24 negotiate (bargaining) wasn't really to get better paydays, it was to make getting high-Availability gear easier in downtime. More money is nice, though.

Um. That reminds me, someone at DragonCon mentioned that the dice cap didn't apply to 4:1 buying hits? Is this actually in the rules somewhere or just someone's mistake?

[Spanner]

And Caine and I looked it up...  Emotitoy is technically is Sensor Software, and in SR4A, Sensors replace the Attribute.  So yeah, Emotitoys are useful for low Charisma characters, but not a bonus like they used to, which is nice.   We'll have to make sure GMs and players are aware of that

Bull

Could you reference the page number for this restriction? I looked last night and couldn't find it.

[Chance359]

1)  Not listing a cap is suicidal to game balance, since I've seen a face at a con get something like 17 net hits.

2)  The baseline payments are intended to be decent paydays.  We balance these things so that groups without Face characters don't get screwed.

3)  Extra stuff is outside the scope of Missions.  The more you add, the more complicated it gets, and the more problematic it becomes.

4)  Don;t over specialize.  Again, 5 net hits means, on average, you were throwing 15 more dice than the Johnson.  Yes, exceptions happen.  But still.  5 Net hits is a freaking lot of net hits.  If this isn;t enough for you, then obviously the Johnsons aren't good enough at their job.  Rating 10 Emotitoys, Tailored Pheremones, a social adept, and hey, I can start giving the Johnsons street cred scores as well, if necessary.

5)  If 5 net hits aren't enough pay for you.  Walk away from the run.  <shrug>

6)  Likewise, shadowrunners are disposable assets.  If you demand too much, Mr. Johnson can always walk away as well.  The city is full of shadowrunners eager to take on jobs. 

7)  the other option is I can not limit net hits...  But make the bonus for net hits negligible.  Your pay is 8,000¥, plus 50¥ per net hit. 

8 )  Don't over specialize.  If you find that you're capping your hits every time?  It's time to start putting points in other things.

1) Writers should be using table rating to give Mr Johnson the same toys the runners have (if my table brings a talented face, Mr. Johnson is going to get TR rating emo soft added to his gear)
 
2) The baseline for pay is a total joke in season 3, only made better by use of TR.

3) A simple side box written in the mod listing options for extra success.

4) So I'm not playing my character right?

5) I have to take my character off the table because he's not being paid what he's worth?  I dont mind hits being capped, a sam can only kill a guy with the same bullet so hard.  My issue is that the value of those successes needs to be looked at.

6) You get what you pay for.

7) I'm not sure I'm really against this, if I'm gonna get paid crap anyway, I might as well be able to get as much crap as possible.

Again, I'm playing my character wrong?

[Caine Hazen]

Actually its an absolutly confounding conundrum.  Sensors can either be a stand alone attribute replacement (usually staging from rating 1-6) or be a modifier (usually rating 1-3).  Empathy Software comes inunder the "Sensors" catagory and rates from 1-6, but is descripted as a bonus.  I think its a case where "snsors" is really really really f-ing ambiguos, and its something that needs to be fixed.

Thn again, there is a case for Sensors being limited by hardware... so an emotitoy w/ its sensors 2 shold probably be capped for sensors software at 2.  Unfortunately its a place without clear rulings.

[Spanner]

Well, I realize that we're all postulating now, but I believe sensors only replace your attribute when you're perceiving through them (e.g., when jumped into a drone).

By my reading, if I run rating 6 empathy software, in a commlink with 6 system and 6 response, tied to an RFID trideo camera sensor that is also rating 6, I get a bonus of 6 dice to my negotiation roles during a face-to-face, meat-body negotiation.

I agree that the emotitoy should be limited by its sensors, but really, who wants one of those things crawling around on you anyway?