[All4BigGuns]

This is doubly aggravated because orcs are so badly undercosted as a package at 20BP (especially with all the fluff changing to eliminate the racism inherent in the system).

You pretty much said here that you don't like orks, so the appearance is there that you're just looking for a reason to screw ork players. Now, to be honest, I don't like orks much myself (not really 'attractive' enough a character race for my tastes), though I like SR orks much better than D&D orcs.

[Falconer]

No, I play them all the time... because they're so much better than a human in most cases.  20BP ogre, 5BP human looking... there I'm set... leave Strength at 3... who cares about the -1 cap on cha and log I wasn't maxing em anyhow.   High lifestyle baby.. at only 8000/month.  My point was that I also accept that they're very short lived... (don't believe me look in the main rulebook!!!).  I'm a very crunchy player if you can't tell... comes from a long history of playing very bloody games without a lot of survivors.

The books actually says they start suffering aging effects by 20... and in some cases senility by 30.  I have zero problems with this... To borrow from bladerunner and Tyrell/replicants... "The light which burns twice as bright, burns half as long".

How is having one player pay 30BP for an elf and only gets a small bump to agi & cha... who's effectively immortal on that time scale and another pay 20 for an orc with far more stat bonuses... fair to the elf?  When he doesn't even get the benefit from his lifespan IN A LONG TIME-HORIZON GAME.  (emphasis needed).

It's clear you disagree with me.  That's fine... it's my opinion.  Unlike you I've backed it up with arguments why I feel it's necessary.  It's a fluff thing which has a huge cost impact in actual gameplay.   Not once has anyone disputed my numbers of the amounts in question... only said that I'm rediculous for allowing a *FLUFF* decision to control who does and does not need to pay for it.  Really why even bother putting leonization in the game?!


In any case... again I'm hoping to hear from others with more ideas as regards to long time horizons... run rates, reward rates... avoiding excessive power creep.  (after you've completely blown through peoples stun/physical/overflow with a single stunball... it kinda loses it's lustre).

It strikes me there's also a lot of room for larger plot development or assumption of a role in the community... like actually becoming the street doc who other runners come to... setting up shop... that sort of thing.

Point being I'm thinking about dusting off my GM cap... after the 2050 book comes out... and I want to try my hand at it again.  Trying to avoid the whole run of the week type of thing with a bit more setting development and sedate pace.

[JustADude]

Here's the thing; unless you give out totally gimped rewards and keep deliberately grinding the players into the dirt, "power creep"... or "player advancement," as it's also known... will happen. It's an inevitable facet of them gaining more resources and abilities over the career of their character. The only way to keep things interesting without resorting to "Asshole GM" tactics is to raise the level of the opposition to match and ensure that there are counters in place during major confrontations.

Mage is throwing massive stunballs? Get someone on the other side that can Counterspell. Street Sam dropping guys in one shot with 10-net-hit attack rolls? Give the guys better armor, better Reflexes, and that you're using cover. That not enough? Put in more guys, along with some heavily armored drones and high-force Spirits. Not to mention alarms and traps and other goodies like that. If all else fails, hit them with a group of rival runners, or elite CorpSec, that's every bit as good as they are... if not better. If it starts to look like a TPK, after all, you can always fake some bad rolls for your NPCs to get them out of the corner.

Just remember, high Karma Shadowrunners (aka "Prime Runners") are scary, spooky, badass dudes. They're among the most dangerous and lethal people on the planet. I'm talking the equivalent of real-world operators like Delta Force, SAS, Spetsnaz, and Mossad. They get hired for jobs that need those kinds of scary, spooky, badass dudes to pull them off... huge risks for huge rewards. Based on official "Missions" payouts, that means that once they reach Prime Runner status (officially set at the 150 karma mark), which should take about a year and change, they're going to only be operating at that level for a few years before they bank enough money to retire in luxury. The ones that stick around beyond that (See "Street Legends" & "Street Legends Supplemental") tend to end up with thousands of Karma.


However, since you're wanting to deal with more expanded roles and "aftermath" type stuff, having them get really badass and then go into "retirement" would probably work nicely for you. Less Karma earned after that point, because they're not actively "adventuring", but plenty of room for long-term plots and the occasional "personal business" type runs.

Personally, I'd also give them a chance to deal with a couple situations in 2070 that echo some stuff the dealt with as 'noobs' back in 2050, just so they get a taste of how far they've come.

[CanRay]

Power creep for skills, sure...  But it doesn't take much to knock a person down to the bare essentials.

Squatting where ever they can, no cred, no vehicle, no firearms, no health...  Just a rep, some contacts, and a whole lot of hate and skills.

[Mirikon]

Falconer, we get it. You don't like orcs in your game. That's all well and good. Don't go out of your way to screw them, yeah? If you're doing a game where the players have supposedly survived for decades in the biz when 90% don't survive their first year, then they're already major exceptions to the norm. At that point, there's no reason to get your panties in a twist about someone wanting to be a goblinized orc or not.

As far as power creep, as others have said, unless you're going to just randomly take things from them just to screw them, they are going to get bigger and better toys, be throwing bigger and better spells, and be doing things that you never thought possible before. Because anyone who's been doing a dangerous job like shadowrunning for twenty fragging years and isn't dead, is going to be DAMN good at what they do. It seems to me that you want to do an epic timeframe plot, but you don't want your players to BE epic.

And CanRay, even if the GM did pull a screw job to take everything from characters like that, with skills, contacts, and rep, they are going to be back in business before long. Also, they'll probably have spares of everything in different safehouses around the sprawl, or the world.

[JoeNapalm]

I've actually run decade-plus long campaigns in several systems, in real and game time. In my opinion, you're coming at it wrong.

First of all, if your plan is to have a game last that long, being punitive to shorter-lived characters is totally backwards. You should be telling your players "Hey, this is a two-decade game plan, so make sure your Trogs are Goblinized. No Ork-born characters allowed."

And yes, you have to plan for power creep...but you do this by knowing the rules and scaling the campaign opposition appropriately. Yes, a 10-year veteran Shadowrunner will be very powerful - they will have to be to survive - but they will also have to be smart. At the end of a 10 or 20 year story arc, you'd better be playing chess, not checkers. You're talking about going up against Dragons, in the endgame, or you're not thinking of how long you're really talking about running this game.

As for just passing extended downtime...eh...I've seen it done. If you're talking a few months while players heal and re-gear, sure, no problem. But the old cryogenic stasis hook never works, in practice.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[Falconer]

Thanks for a well written reply Joe.

It's not a matter of being punitive... I just don't think a 'fluff' point like goblinization should allow them off the hook of paying for leonization.  Read above... prior to this, it wasn't really necessary (games simply wouldn't last long enough... and there was little need to be able to port an 'old' character from the 2050's to the 2070's).  I'm big on the golden rule... if I pulled out a 2050's orc and handed it to a GM... and he said by this time it's pushing up daisies, I'd be perfectly fine with it.  I chose the race back then KNOWING the aging problem and knowing how much better they were than mere humans.  It's simply the price I paid.  So I don't understand why others feel I'm being punitive when I take that POV as a player and switch it around to the GM seat.

Quite frankly... where I originally started was trying to figure out how to handle aging rules for EVERYONE (humans, etc.).   This isn't battletech... where you can roll every 2 years on the lifepath system and see what happens.  Lifepath is cool concept for chargen... though the implementation fell short.


As for the rest this is something I touched on earlier.   I think the run rates that come up in many games are a bit high... to have people who are practically constantly involved in hostilities of one sort or another with someone or another based on who's the highest bidder.  And some companies like Aztechnology make it a point to kill people who go against them as a matter of policy to discourage like-minded entrepreneurs.  Some of the Japanacorps and their zero-zones as well will follow up to save face.  Some of the others may take more of a it's just business, and even want to hire them because they are competent professionals.  Part of me thinks the best way to handle a lot of that is to keep the megas themselves at a good distance until later in the game.   Megas have global reach... so where exactly do you run to escape from say S-K.  At that point... you're almost playing politics and choosing sides playing one mega's protection off another.

I'm aware that creep is always present in all games.  It just strikes me that this is a bit more of a problem.  If you have some periods of high activity... and others of low.  Also some other concerns pop up when I think about my most likely players.   One absolutely refuses to play anything but the most powerful mage he can wherever and whenever... it's hard to get him to see that everyone else isn't out to play 'magicrun' and it's not fun when the answer to most all combats is phasers to 'stunball' or who needs a street sam when you have an army of high force spirits.   Blow their brains out their ears.   In prior editions he'd be the one summoning spirits simply to ground out spells against the mundanes who couldn't do crap against him and reveling in it.  (then lamenting the loss of grounding out).  Generally the one who likes to deal with dragons and be in the thick of metaplot.

Toss in that I want to start at a very low street level of play.   And it gets worse... okay higher karma awards allows players to really feel like they're advancing.  (one thing I dislike about SR4 in it's current form.. it doesn't FEEL like you do much to advance at all after chargen... I guess you could say players come out too strong out of chargen).  Building up a character from scratch like that, means that hyperspecialization with karma works even better.

In this case, there's very little I can do to prevent against him constantly buying up his skills when in the case of others like I can take away their toys, like Canray brings up.  In fact, that was something I was considering especially if they have to move around.  (piss off the wrong corp... gets a bit too much heat...).   It's not that I'm after a full-on black trenchcoat type of game.  Another enjoys just having his troll do over the top 'fun' stuff.  Under the old rules;... there was the magic-loss problem... though that DOES strike me as being a vindictive and punitive GM compared to 4th.

In the older setting as well... money tended to be a much bigger thing.  The costs of cyber (let alone bio) are so prohibitive you start to wonder why anyone would have it as opposed to living out their years fat and happy with the dosh instead.  SR4 fixed that... but in a retro game it is still a setting problem.  Also remains to be seen how they handle things like decks ($$$$) and riggers control modules and the like merged into the 4th system.  I guess all this remains to be seen how well it's resolved in the 2050 book itself.  (I for one am almost a guaranteed buy... still have my old SR1 book).

Similarly, a lot of the toys can be simply unavailable where players need them... I used to run into this problem a lot in my old games as a player.  Yeah you have a really really nice gun...  but do you really want to take it on a run where you may need to eliminate evidence afterwards?   Or how do you get it from point A to B through customs on a reasonable budget!  Keeping things far flung and bouncing between locales also tends to make it harder for deeply ingrained support networks of contacts, but risks a bit of the feel of "these guys are just hitmen being brought in for some short term wetwork". 

Another thing I can see to push time out is bring healing rates down more into line.   Medicine and first aid checks can bring someone nearly to full by itself in 2070's SR4.. let alone finishing up with a heal spell.  Under the old system... someone who took serious levels of damage was looking at a significant hospital bill and a lot of time out of action.  Now it's rare not to find people who can't be back on their feet 100% in a few days let alone a week.

[All4BigGuns]

Ahhh, the "golden rule"...possibly the single WORST mistake ever inserted into ANY game. Far too often since its creation it gets dragged out and quoted occasionally by decent GMs, but more often than not by GMs who just use it for the "this helps the players, so I'm invoking 'golden rule' to keep it out of my game".

And "street level"...ewww, that is quite possibly the most dull, boring and tedious game-type out there, in my opinion. It is primarily fun for the GM.

[Falconer]

Was there a point to all that rambling BigGuns?   Or  are  you just pointing out you don't like any of my views and waste bandwidth without saying anything constructive and launching an ad hominem against anyone who disagrees with you?  Does it strike you as odd... that some of us PREFER to play at street level (even as a player) where the challenges tend to be harder and more rewarding.

For me the golden rules most basic expression in game is this... "turnabout is fair play" don't pull out anything you don't want the GM to use against you.   It works extremely well to help players police themselves from abusing rules and half-broken mechanics and starting an arms race.

I don't care if you keep tossing silly negatives at me... I have my views... more importantly, I know WHY I hold those views and I can and will back them up with arguments.  I'm not trying to cater any of this towards you or your desires and am only interested in constructive feedback on what I'm getting myself into.

[JoeNapalm]

I guess I don't see Goblinization as a "fluff" tactic for players to get away with something. I see it as a way to allow players to choose what they want to play without being unduly penalized. Having characters Goblinized puts them on par with Humans (the baseline SR race) in terms of aging.

I understand that your view is that this allows  them to somehow dodge the big nuyen tab for avoiding aging - but in SR, there are no aging rules. Aging is, itself, simply part of the flavor text. Leonization is there, as was mentioned above, for wealthy NPCs or as a hook for people who want to play an aging character trying to cheat death.

My point is that, if you want to run a game of this scope, you should be allowing players to make their own decisions. If you want a long-running campaign, having a players who really want to play an Ork choose something else because they don't want to dump 1/3rd of their max Positive Quality points on a perk that has zero net effect on gameplay isn't conducive to your goal. What player is going to want to endure a long-term campaign running a character that isn't what they really wanted?

Goblinization is an out, rather than a cheat. It gives your players the option to play an Ork, when otherwise they could not.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[Mirikon]

And besides, even if this rule was in effect, most people would instead choose to pay 5 BP for a Spirit Pact with a weak, 1 Edge spirit to get the Formula pact. Which conveys Immunity to Aging. The point is, this rule is utterly useless, and extremely prejudicial towards players who like orcs.

[Xzylvador]

Careful man, apparently the smiters are coming out of the woodwork on this thread...

Meh. If the first 109 haven't stopped me...

One of those from me, don't care that you don't care.
Whether you agree with the OP or not, there were plenty of ways to say so without coming across like a complete dick. Replying in the way you did, to a question that is polite, legit and well laid out by the OP, was completely uncalled for. While I actually agree with you and think some of the points you make are valid, the way you put them could make anyone looking for input/insight on a similar question turn away from this thread.
Thankfully, others have demonstrated a more polite disagreeing and are capable of argumenting in a mature way.

[Falconer]

I guess I don't see Goblinization as a "fluff" tactic for players to get away with something. I see it as a way to allow players to choose what they want to play without being unduly penalized. Having characters Goblinized puts them on par with Humans (the baseline SR race) in terms of aging.

Joe... fast question... what puts humans on par with orcs or trolls in regards to attributes?  Where do they go to spend 20BP and get a huge package deal on attributes and enhanced senses?

Why is it they can't enjoy their longer lifespan and more assets to buy cool toys like cyber to make up for those deficits.

This is another MAJOR point.  Goblinization is NOWHERE IN THE RULEBOOKS OF ANY EDITION OF SHADOWRUN.   I felt the need to emphasize that.   Anyone who does not enforce age is playing fast and loose with the rules as published.   All the rulebooks are clear that people who select orc or troll have shorter lifespans than normal humans.  Nowhere does it say that there is any way out of that.  So I'm getting a real kick out of people who's only argument is I'm singling others out, when I'm merely sticking to the rules and trying to provide a nicely balanced out.   I also get a real kick out of the spirit pact (I know all those quite well... exactly what are you paying the spirit given the MASSIVE drawbacks associated with that one to the spirit... half of all your karma!  you think free spirits in particular like having someone out there advertising their spirit formula for all to see?, did you bother with the part about GM permission on that quality).

I'm not singling out anyone... that's why I disagree with so many of you.  It's not about 'playing what you want'.   It's about following the rules making your choices and accepting the consequences.  It's about being fair to the OTHER players who did pay more for longer lived races with less benefits.


In any case, I really do want to get off this point.   I'm far more interested in ways that people have managed to keep things from spiraling out of control without resorting to a complete and utter arms race.   How they've managed to keep people from hyper specializing and making reasonably well rounded characters especially when karma seems scarce.

The only idea I've had along those lines is basically put up the carrot... karma will be generous so long as the characters stay well rounded.

I'm aware some of my prior posts are a bit long and rambling when I try and go over those thoughts... my own thoughts are pretty jumbled at the moment.  I haven't done much with largescale campaigns... mostly only done short encounter type deals.  So while I've dealt with a lot of these things in the abstract, and seen them quite a bit from the player side of things, the GM side not so much.

[Critias]

I guess I don't see Goblinization as a "fluff" tactic for players to get away with something. I see it as a way to allow players to choose what they want to play without being unduly penalized. Having characters Goblinized puts them on par with Humans (the baseline SR race) in terms of aging.

Joe... fast question... what puts humans on par with orcs or trolls in regards to attributes?  Where do they go to spend 20BP and get a huge package deal on attributes and enhanced senses?

Why is it they can't enjoy their longer lifespan and more assets to buy cool toys like cyber to make up for those deficits.

This is another MAJOR point.  Goblinization is NOWHERE IN THE RULEBOOKS OF ANY EDITION OF SHADOWRUN.

Yes, but the problem is that aging -- with actual rules for stat deterioration and hard caps on lifespans and age categories and all that stuff -- isn't in any rulebook anywhere in any edition of Shadowrun, either.

Those who introduce genuine mechanical rules for the aging of characters (human, metahuman, you name it) are in essence house ruling already.  They're trying to house rule for the crunch to fit the fluff, yes, but it's nonetheless still a house rule.  Tacking on another houserule to account for goblinization is, as such, just taking another step from RAW, for better or worse. 

If you think it's needed in your campaign, more power to ya.  If your players are on board, if your players understand that age will be an issue prior to choosing their metatype and fluffing up a background story that includes their character's age, and all that good stuff?  Knock yourself out, in my opinion, I think it could be really cool.  But the kneejerk reaction, the dogpile you're getting here?  It's (a) a sign of folks feeling blindsided by that sort of rule coming at them out of nowhere, and (b) a moot point, anyways, because the folks on the forums ain't the folks at your game table. 

[JoeNapalm]

I guess I don't see Goblinization as a "fluff" tactic for players to get away with something. I see it as a way to allow players to choose what they want to play without being unduly penalized. Having characters Goblinized puts them on par with Humans (the baseline SR race) in terms of aging.

Joe... fast question... what puts humans on par with orcs or trolls in regards to attributes?  Where do they go to spend 20BP and get a huge package deal on attributes and enhanced senses?

Why is it they can't enjoy their longer lifespan and more assets to buy cool toys like cyber to make up for those deficits.

Humans get +1 Edge. They get higher CHA and LOG than Orks, and higher AGI, CHA, INT, and LOG than Trolls. Plus much greater acceptance by the world at large.

Longer lifespan isn't referenced as a pro or con outside if flavor text. There are no rules for aging. In the huge majority of games, age is unlikely to have any impact beyond Roleplaying.

This is another MAJOR point.  Goblinization is NOWHERE IN THE RULEBOOKS OF ANY EDITION OF SHADOWRUN.   I felt the need to emphasize that.   Anyone who does not enforce age is playing fast and loose with the rules as published.   

Actually, Goblinization is mentioned all over the rules. On SR4A, 71 it specifically states that Goblinized metahumans are especially prone to early death. In terms of canon, SR4 trumps whatever novel you referenced citing otherwise.

That said, show me where the rules for aging are that people are playing fast and loose with? There are none. In all of the splatbooks, the revised SR4A rules, the whole ruleset, not a single rule on aging. Leonization is in a splatbook, making it only slightly better than a novel in terms of canon.

There are rules for far more trivial things - do you really believe this is merely an oversight? With major players like Bull and Fastjack who are getting along in years being so prominent? No...aging simply isn't fun.

You've asked for feedback, and as someone who has run games that have run across decades, let me give you mine.

  This is a bad houserule.  

Sugar-coating it would do you a disservice. Rules that make the game less fun for your players need to be weighed very carefully, especially in a long-term game.

Aging is a great story hook, for the long term. It would be a really crappy mechanic, however. You want to penalize a player during CharGen for choosing a Goblinized backstory and potentially doing so well as to survive? No - people here are reacting negatively to this, and I would expect that to reflect in your players.

In any case, I really do want to get off this point.   I'm far more interested in ways that people have managed to keep things from spiraling out of control without resorting to a complete and utter arms race.   How they've managed to keep people from hyper specializing and making reasonably well rounded characters especially when karma seems scarce.

The only idea I've had along those lines is basically put up the carrot... karma will be generous so long as the characters stay well rounded.

Let them spend their points as they want. If they don't build a well-rounded team, start "hitting them where they ain't"...they should address their short-comings.

Characters will become more powerful. That is their reward. They will also gain a higher profile, allowing less room for error and more powerful enemies. If a high-power game isn't your end goal, you need to consider what you really want. Players want to improve their characters. Long-term games evolve. After a decade in-game, the PCs will be legendary heroes, or dead. Ultimately, you control the rate of advancement...but you can't, and shouldn't, try to slow it too much, or your players will rapidly lose interest.


-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist